


before you

by theformerone



Series: before you 'verse [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Arranged Marriage, Assisted Suicide, BAMF Haruno Sakura, Drama, Dubious Consent, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Romance, F/F, F/M, Femslash February 2018, Grief/Mourning, Healthy Coping Mechanisms, M/M, Political Alliances, Reincarnation, Slow Burn, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide, Survivor Guilt, Time Travel Fix-It, Time Travelling Lesbians, Warring States Period (Naruto), this is all mako's fault
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-06
Updated: 2019-01-21
Packaged: 2019-03-14 17:50:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 20
Words: 149,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13595232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theformerone/pseuds/theformerone
Summary: When she is somersaulted back in time to Uzushio before it was Uzushio, with Kurama's yin chakra folded into the seal on her forehead, heart bursting with loss and the weight of her burden, she tells them her name is Tsubaki.Uzumaki Mito looks at her like she is an enemy.





	1. Chapter 1

Sakura never thought she would see the day that seeing another human face would cause her more dread than hope. 

They have been running for years, leaping in and out of pocket dimensions,  running, peeling across the world on bleeding feet. They separated then reunited then separated again, never able to stop for longer than a breath to regroup and then disperse. 

They are sparse with chakra when they can be, they nearly blow out their reserves in the fight against Kaguya and her one million white and black minions. There is no time, no chance to fight any way other than completely. They have to fight to kill, but they have to conserve energy and use it as sparingly as physically possible. Sakura's chakra control quietly slips into being so precise she can skin a Zetsu with barely a flicker of chakra coating her fingertips. 

Kakashi had fallen first, out of all of them. She tries not to remember the atrocities that she's become used to. There had been no time to mourn him, no time to weep. They loot his body for his weapons. Obito is the only one who weeps. Sasuke destroyed Kakashi's body with his hideous black flames, and they moved on. 

The Zetsus got to Karin. Carried her off to Kaguya, who sucked the chakra from her throat until the girl was a husk. Lee was after that. Then Hinata. Temari. The Mizukage, Terumi Mei. Sakura wanted to stop counting, she wanted to stop thinking of how many lost to death. But she could not forget. If they survived this, someone needed to remember the names of the dead. She mumbles them to herself in between snatches of sleep and waking, pressing herself to remember surnames and villages. 

There are no other survivors. No villages, no families to inform of their losses. Still, Sakura remembers. 

Ino fell with a thousand White Zetsu minds under her control. She severed her own brain stem to take all of them to death with her. Sakura held her body like a broken doll in her arms, weeping. Naruto had to drag her away from her as she insisted on mouth to mouth, on trying to heal the precise, permanent wound while Sasuke destroyed the body. Sakura nearly killed him for that, nearly wasted her chakra tearing her fist through Sasuke's stomach. It took Naruto and Kankuro, tearing her off of him and dragging her halfway across the remains of Kiri for her to calm down.

She didn’t make it a habit to look at him very much after that. She was enraged in a petulant, childish way. But there is no time for her to be angry. Not when Sasuke pierces the white body of a dangerous creature before it has the chance to drag her to her knees. Not when he uses those same black flames to destroy the things that wish her dead. Not when both of his arms are broken and he can’t wield a sword with his teeth.

She amputates Naruto’s right hand in the field when an All Killing Ash Bone pierces it, heals the damage with a wipe of her hand and covers him as he teaches himself how to fight with only his left in the middle of battle.

Tenten holds her forearm and kisses her the only way there is to kiss anymore; like saying goodbye. She runs into the fray to draw fire away from Sakura, the last healer among them, so she has enough time to keep them alive. She doesn’t see her again after that.

She was a brief moment of respite after Ino died. Ino had been Sakura’s battlefield wife, and she and Tenten had crumbled into each other after she lost Temari, too. It had been a measure of comfort; a warm mouth, dirt and blood under the nails, a bruise not from fighting but from desperate teeth and mouths and want.

They keep running.

She doesn’t see Chouji go down. She doesn’t see Tokuma either. There are too many dead and dying for Sakura to save.

She was with Obito when he went down. He dragged them into a pocket dimension, then into a pocket dimension within that one, then into the real world, moving them just too quickly to be tracked. 

"Take it," he said. "Take it so she can't find it."

She does the surgery herself. The Sharingan takes an immediate toll on her body, sucking up the little chakra she has. She shuts the eye, binds it with bandages. She gives Obito her green one. When Kaguya tears a hole in space and time and crawls into the dimension, her many Zetsu tumbling in after her, Sakura sets the whole damn thing ablaze with Amaterasu's black flames, and Kamui's herself away from the destruction. 

It is seeing Kaguya’s face on repeat, watching Obito stand and fight and fall down and die, on and on and on, that makes her think a wild thought.

When she tells Naruto, he tells her something similar. When they find Sasuke, after he is suitably shocked by her new left eye, he mutters something like what she and Naruto had mumbled to each other.

Wild thoughts, they run in Team Seven’s blood.

They go to Uzushio because it has been abandoned, and it’s one of the last places on earth that hasn’t been raided over again because there is no one there alive to steal chakra from.

They study for days, two of them often running off to fight to draw attention away from the one designing the massive sealing array.

They bicker between the three of them who should be sent back. Sasuke thinks it should be Naruto, because he’s got a heart as big as the world, and if anyone could change the past it’s him.

Naruto thinks it should be Sakura because she’s a battle medic, and if anyone could survive the jump back in time it’s probably her.

Sakura thinks it should be Sasuke, because he’s the only one who could stop the Uchiha on their side of the war. They’ll need another Sharingan to stop Madara, if he goes through with his machinations.

Sasuke points at her covered left eye and says with that logic, she’s the perfect one to go. She tells him she’s not sure how to use it, and that he’s the only one who could beat his anscestor’s ass; their chakra is the same anyway.

That stops them. The fact of the matter, is that they don’t know how the world will react to having two incarnations of the same chakra in the same timeline. The only reason the world didn’t rip itself apart when Hashirama, Naruto, Madara, and Sasuke all inhabited it, was because half of them were technically dead.

There was the off chance, that with Madara and Sasuke or Hashirama and Naruto both alive, any techniques they used on each other would be moot. Alternatively, they could tear the world apart.

Sakura was no one’s reincarnation. And she had Obito’s eye. It’s almost as if it’s by design.

There isn’t time to say goodbye. Sasuke returns one day with blood spilling from his eyes, and tells them that it’s now or never.

The seal takes up most of the island, and Sakura is at its center, pouring chakra into it. She unleashes the full power of her Byakugō. It’s not enough. Her new Sharingan constantly pulls on her chakra because she can’t deactivate it, and she marvels at her dead sensei’s reserves, at his strength, to live almost forty years with thirty of them in a constant, insistent sense of drain.

What a terrible irony, that their last chance at survival is what kills her and not the rabbit eared goddess approaching across the water.

Sasuke has gone to fight, and Naruto is caught between protection and aggression. She is ready to tell him to go, ready to tell him that he’ll survive without her even though she knows that Kurama’s healing factor won’t protect him forever and that Sasuke will fall victim to the degenerative effects of the Sharingan with his extended use if Sakura is not there to counteract the damage.

Sakura is ready to be left behind again.

She feels it when Naruto slams his only hand onto the ground and pours Kurama’s chakra into the array. It snakes up her tenketsu, inside of her, wriggling around, and finding a home in the white diamond on her forehead. Her body draws in his chakra like it's starving, and it is, and stores it, hides it away.

She hears Naruto scream, a blood curdling sound. A battle sound. Sakura looks up just in time to see Kaguya pierce him with something pale and hard and Sakura’s Sharingan opens behind her eyepatch made of bandages and if this is what the Mangekyou feels like, how did the Uchiha _survive_?

She doesn’t get a chance to find out. She opens the dimension because Obito’s eye knew how to do it, and Sakura is filled with chakra so sharp and corrosive it feels like it’s burning her from inside out, but the world is being torn away from her, ripped out of her hands, and the last thing she hears before the silence is the sound of Naruto dying.

* * *

“State your business.”

She is on her stomach on the sand, and her eye is on fire. Her tenketsu are on fire. Everything, _everything_ burns.

Her left eye is weeping blood. She looks up with her right. There is a woman of her same age, maybe twenty, perhaps younger. Her hair is the color of a Tsukuyomi moon, and her eyes are dark.

She has her sword to Sakura’s throat.

“Your _business_ , intruder.”

Sakura can hear the ocean. She can taste salt. She gets her hands beneath her, green eye darting back and forth.

She’s exactly where she was when the seal was activated. Only she’s many handfuls of years in the past. She’s in Uzushio, and there are arrows and blades aimed at her as she twitches on the ground.

Oh. She did it.

Naruto is dead. Sasuke is somewhere, maybe. There is a strange corrosive chakra making itself at home in her body behind her forehead and in her reserves.

The girl’s sword digs the barest bit into Sakura’s throat.

“Your name,” she snarls, “and your business.”

She can only think of Ino. Of flowers, when the world was still full of them. Red and yellow and white. Perishing with grace. Remembering. Waiting. Longing.

This girl’s hair is red as the camellia’s in the academy garden. Red as the flowers in the Yamanaka shop. Red as living, and losing love.

“Tsubaki,” Sakura rasps. “My name is Tsubaki. And I am a traveler.”

The girl sneers at her, and Sakura can feel the cut her blade begins to make.

“A traveler?”

“A very, _very_ lost traveler.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm fucking yelling i didn't know time traveling lesbians was a whole ass tag on this website that just made my entire day


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> disclaimer: this is all amako's fault.

The girl doesn't move the blade away from her neck. Sakura isn't expecting her to.

She jerks her head at some of the armored shinobi that surround Sakura, and with very little fanfare, they get in her space and drag her up by her arms.

She doesn't have any weapons, because towards the end, chakra was the only thing that worked consistently and sharpening knives took too much time on the run. She's dressed in her sandals, her blue cargos, and her blue turtleneck, one sleeve still ripped off. When they put her on her feet, her legs feel like jelly.

"You're trespassing, Tsubaki-san," the red haired girl says, sheathing her weapon, "on Uzushio territory."

Uzushio. Not Uzushiogakure. She's back before the founding. Fuck, she really did make it that far, didn't she?

"Believe me," Sakura says, "that was not my intent."

Getting back before the founding had been the plan. There were pockets of things she had to do. She had to get to the Naka Shrine, to that damn stone tablet before Black Zetsu did, and if she didn't make it there in time, she had to destroy the bullshit he had transcribed onto it. She had to find the Gedo Mazo and destroy the damn thing, and wherever the statue was, Black Zetsu was sure to be nearby. There was little chance she could save the White Zetsus that were inside of the statue, so they had to be obliterated as well. After that, she could head for the heart of Fire Country. She'd save Uchiha Izuna's life, and she'd beat the shit out of Uchiha Madara until he saw reason.  

But Sakura was in Uzushio, and was a small ocean away from Fire Country, weeks away from where the fighting between the Senju and Uchiha was taking place. 

The shinobi twisted her arms behind her back, and the red haired girl stepped forward. She grabbed Sakura by the chin, and tugged her face downward to peer at her forehead. 

"And you're using our techniques," she spits. "Poorly."

She drops Sakura's chin and looks at the shinobi who hold her. 

"Take her away. I'll speak to the council about what to do with her next."

"Yes, Mito-sama," the shinobi say. 

Sakura's mind grinds to a halt. 

Of course. How  _typical._

* * *

They knock her out so she won't be able to navigate the village well when she wakes up. Sakura wants to tell them to fuck off for being so paranoid, but then again, she's been fighting a god for the last three years of her life. Paranoia is healthy. 

When she wakes up, she's in a cold cell by herself. There are bars which she finds funny until she reaches out to touch them and they fill her with lightning chakra so potent it triggers a seizure. 

When she wakes up the second time, she keeps far away from the bars. Somehow she had forgotten this is Uzushio's first golden age. Of course there are seals lining the bars of her cell. Of course Mito had clocked the Byakugō on her forehead and called her out. 

Sakura groans, and runs her hands slowly over her body to make sure she hasn't been irreparably damaged. She's got no bruising, nothing broken, and she breathes a little easier after that. She looks around her cell and runs her hands tenderly over the bandaged side of her face. It's been undisturbed. How lucky. If the Uzumaki had seen her Sharingan, Sakura didn't know what they would do about it. 

If Uzumaki Mito was still in Uzushio, it was likely their alliance with the Senju hadn't occurred yet. They probably knew of the Uchiha and of their eyes, but even if they did discover that Sakura had one, they'd have little cause to throw her to the lions. They'd call her a bloodline thief, though, and in these ages, that was probably a little bit worse. 

She tries to dredge up a measure of chakra to heal her eyes, but finds that she's scraping the bottom of the barrel. She groans and hates it. It makes sense. She had emptied years of chakra storage in her Byakugō to fill the seal with chakra and it still hadn't been enough. If it weren't for Naruto supplementing her efforts, she wouldn't have made it back in time. 

But Sakura can feel her ever active Sharingan scape at the nothing in her reserves and demand chakra. She feels a little sick. She needs to sleep for longer, needs to eat something. After that, she can start focusing chakra back into her seal.

Now that she thinks about it, she'll probably have to make a second one somewhere else on her body to feed the Sharingan specifically. That way it'd always be eating at something, and Sakura could store enough so that it wouldn't tug on her natural reserves all the time. The space between her collarbones might be good for that, just at the top of her sternum. 

She runs her hands through her hair, feeling strange and off kilter. She had shaved her head ages ago. Ino had scraped a kunai close to her scalp, one of the few left that would kill something in that old world. Even hair around her shoulders had been enough for a White Zetsu to grab. Sakura hadn't been snatched back by her hair since she was a genin; no one had ever been able to get close enough to do that since the Chuunin Exams. 

But the Zetsus were faster than her that day, and had taken a hank of her hair as Sakura tore herself out of their grasp. She stopped the bleeding and killed the four white bodies. Ino had shaved the rest of her head a couple of days later when they had been able to meet, had moved carefully around the ugly scar that marred Sakura's scalp.

She runs her hands over her head, over the short locks. She rubs at the scar, kneading the tissue. Head injuries were a bitch and a half to heal, especially when chakra needed to be spared for fighting. Sakura's injury wasn't life threatening. It was missing skin and mostly cosmetic. She could live with a scar; Lee couldn't live with a perforated lung. 

Sakura settles herself into lotus and tries to clear her mind. She's not getting out of this cell until someone comes and lets her out, and that could take anywhere between days and months. She didn't need them to trust her, but she did need them to feed her because she needed her strength. What was important was getting to the Uchiha stronghold and getting to that damn tablet. She needed to be in Fire Country to do that, and in Fire Country she was not. 

The Sharingan tugs at her insistently, starving, desperate and mean. She feels dizzy, and has half a mind to gouge the damn thing out with her own two fingers but she knows she needs it. Still, even looking out at her cell with her green eye is beginning to make her feel nauseous. Chakra exhaustion was known to kill; it had been a daily fight all of them couldn't afford to lose when they were scattered and running from Kaguya. 

There wasn't time for all of them to go to a sage region and learn senjutsu because by the time they got back, the others would be dead. Not to mention the sage regions were waging their own wars against Kaguya and her forces, and didn't have the time to teach. 

Sakura had felt it when Katsuyu died. It had taken something else out of her, something that she hadn't really even known was there. Sasuke, stoic, quiet Sasuke had screamed for blood when Aoda was killed. 

But here, somewhere in this world, they are still alive. It makes hope, which is a dangerous thing, claw at Sakura. She wonders if she should contract with Katsuyu again, or if she would be better served by pursuing a different contract. Sasuke had his hawks and the snakes; the world would probably be safer if Sakura gathered allies from many different regions. The only problem was who to ask. 

She's just about ready to go to sleep and let her reserves try to fill themselves up when her forehead starts to burn. 

It's that same burn from earlier and earlier still, a corrosive, searing heat that threatens to overtake her. Sakura has dealt with pain, but there has never been anything quite like this before. 

She groans, presses her hands to her forehead and tries to stop it. It takes her down onto her hands and knees, and she places her forehead, her Byakugō on the cool stone floor to get a measure of comfort. 

_'Quit squirming, kit, I'm trying to help.'_

Sakura's eyes snap open. She isn't in her cell anymore. 

She's in her mind - no, she's in her seal, inside of her own Byakugō. It's a place with muggy air, but cool water rises up to Sakura's ankles. She peers down into her reflection; her Byakugō is different. No longer a purple diamond, it is now two slim black circles, one containing the other. She rubs her fingers over the peculiar mark and looks back up. The sky is blue. There's mud underneath her toes. 

On a little island in front of her, is a fox about the size of a horse sitting in front of her. 

"Kurama," Sakura breathes. 

"In the flesh," he replies. 

"But - how? I don't understand."

Kurama leans down until he's laying on his belly, paws laid tidily, one over the other. 

"Naruto," he says. "He poured my chakra into the seal. You had blown your tenketsu open, I guess, so your body sucked in my chakra instead of using all of it."

Sakura puts her hands on top of her head and looks around, trying not to choke on the panic rising in her throat. 

"But you - you're still you. Two of you can't exist in the same time. That's why Sasuke and Naruto," she stops, gasping for breath. " _Naruto_."

"Quit it, kit, you'll pop something."

She looks back at the fox, who looks strangely serene in her mind. 

"Me taking in your chakra doesn't mean you should be in my head," she bites. 

Kurama shrugs his shoulders, and runs his paws through the water that surrounds him. 

"The Byakugō was one of the first storage seals ever created," he says. "Fuinjutsu has more personality than genjutsu or taijutsu or other forms of ninjutsu. It knows what it is. It stored me."

"But what happens when I meet the you from this time?" she presses. 

Kurama looks at her like she's an idiot, or like she hasn't grasped the concept of what is truly, a very simple problem. 

"I'm not a reincarnation of anything, kit," he says. "My chakra's been mine and only mine since the Sage split me and my litter up into nine. I'm not ripping a hole in space-time by being here any more than you are."

That calms her down, but only by a little bit. Sakura runs her hands over her face and stops in surprise when she realizes her bandages aren't there. 

"Ugly fuckin' eye, you've got there," Kurama rumbles. 

Obito's eye peers out at the bijuu it manipulated in another life. It looks terribly sad settled in Sakura's face. 

"I needed it," she says. "He wanted me to have it, and I needed it to stop what Madara's doing."

"I don't care about the sob story, kit," Kurama says. "I saw it all from inside Naruto. I know, okay? I know."

Sakura shuts her mouth around the apology she still wants to say anyway. 

"It'll come in handy when you meet the me from this era," he continues. "It'll let you in his head and he and I can have a nice chat about saving the damn world because humans can't be trusted to do it alone."

Sakura narrows her eyes, something like punch drunk humor rising in her stomach. 

"You're going to help me?" she asks. 

A wave of cold water splashes Sakura in the face. She wipes it out of her eyes only to see one of Kurama's nine tails twitching to do it again. A being made of pure chakra just  _splashed_ her. Sakura can't help but laugh. 

And it hurts because Ino isn't there to laugh with her, and Naruto isn't there to yell at Kurama for being rude, and Sasuke isn't there to yell at Naruto for yelling in the first place, so it's a laughter that turns into weeping and Kurama's tail doesn't splash her again but it does lay gently on her shoulders. 

"I'll feed that ugly thing until you get some food in you and you get back on your feet. I'll get stronger as you do, but for now, I'll give you my chakra for your Sharingan," he says. "It'll hurt because you aren't used to it. But it's better than dying."

Sakura nods, then reaches out with hesitant arms. She gets to her knees and the water splashes up against her stomach. She hugs the nine tailed fox. Kurama only hesitates for a moment before he wraps his tails around her in the closest approximation of a hug he can do. 

He and Naruto had been friends towards the end. Feeling Kurama's chakra well up in Naruto had been a comfort rather than a death sentence during the many years long war. And it's nice to have him here, to have a little piece of the past with her. She suddenly feels much less alone. 

"Get some rest, kit," Kurama says. "You're gonna need it."

* * *

Sakura wakes up when she feels a shadow fall across her face. Her green eye snaps open and her hand reaches out to grab at the leg of the person that's trying to touch her, but she finds that she cannot move her arms. Sakura grits her teeth, eye darting down to her arms. Fucking fuinjutsu. 

"You've been asleep for a week, traveler," Uzumaki Mito says, peering down at her. 

There are two others in her cell, flanking Mito in case the seals should fail and Sakura is able to attack. 

Sakura licks her lips and huffs out, "There's a war going on outside your borders. Excuse me for needing to rest."

Mito hums at her and very pointedly steps down on Sakura's wrist until she can feel the bone creak. Sakura's no fool; she can heal her own body by concentrating chakra on afflicted areas. If Mito breaks her wrist, she could fix it in minutes. 

But a display of that kind of power would be showing her hand too soon, so Sakura suffers the indignity of the fracture. The pain is nothing like Kurama's chakra, nothing like losing Ino, or hearing Naruto die. Sakura once had to drag herself across Earth Country with a broken leg because she didn't have enough chakra to heal it, and the next meeting site for the survivors was meters away. 

A fractured wrist is a paper cut in comparison. 

Her lack of response makes Mito raise a pretty red eyebrow, but she turns around and sweeps out of Sakura's cell, her two spare shinobi flanking her. Once she's outside, Mito makes a hand seal, and Sakura suddenly has use of her arms again. 

She examines them. They're beautifully done seals, all black lines and delicate accents. They don't just constrict her chakra flow, they can stop her from moving as well. 

"A precautionary measure," Mito says.

One of her shinobi slides a bowl of rice porridge and a spoon through a small slat on the floor of Sakura's cell. She's upon the food in an instant. It's the first thing she's put in her stomach in weeks, and longer than that probably, from where she's from. Her brain is screaming at her to eat quickly, because each meal is snatched, and the next one is not promised, but Tsunade's voice in the back of her head demands that she go slowly unless she wants to hurt herself. 

Sakura takes measured bites and counts to seventy before she swallows. Even tasting something is just as good as eating it at this point. 

"Where are you from, traveler?" Mito asks as Sakura eats. 

Clearly, she's not expecting manners, but Sakura waits until she's swallowed her mouthful before answering. 

"West of here," she answers. 

"Fire Country."

"Yes."

"We do not receive many visitors from Fire Country," Mito says. 

Sakura nods. 

"The war keeps trade at a minimum," she replies. 

"And who's side are you on in the war, traveler?" Mito asks. 

Sakura looks down at her bowl. Her Sharingan isn't eating at nothing anymore; Kurama must have fed it that whole week she was asleep, allowing her natural stores of chakra to rebuild themselves. The seals on her arms are keeping her chakra locked down, but she can feel her reserves are full again. She can't manipulate it, but she knows it's there. That's more than enough. 

"I'm a survivor," Sakura answers. "And I'm trying to keep it that way."

"A deserter?" Mito asks, arching her eyebrow. 

Sakura doesn't grind her teeth. She'd been one of the last of them still standing. She would never be a deserter, could never be accused of abandoning her comrades when they needed her most. 

"A survivor," Sakura repeats. 

Mito hums. 

"That's a strange piece of seal work on your forehead," the red haired Uzumaki princess says. 

Sakura shrugs her shoulders. 

"It's nothing, really."

Mito gives her a mean smile and says, "It's one of my family's techniques."

Sakura cocks a brow. 

"You think your family's the only one who could figure out how to store chakra at a single point on their body?"

"You will show Mito-sama the proper respect, girl," says one of the shinobi, a man with a shock of orange hair. 

"Akira," Mito says. 

The man stills the moment she says his name. Sakura gives Akira an appraising eye. He looks like one of Nagato's Six Paths. The pretty one, the tall one with the nose piercings. She wonders if they're distantly related. 

"You have strange chakra stored in that seal, traveler," Mito says. "That seal is not supposed to look the way it does, and the chakra inside of it is the reason."

"There are many strange things in the world outside Uzushio, Mito-sama," Sakura says. "I am only one of them."

"Yes," she replies. "I believe you are."

Mito nods very delicately, and the other man, not Akira, he produces a sheaf of paper and a small well of ink, and a brush. He slides them into Sakura's cell through the same slot the food came in through. 

"You will show us the array that gave rise to the seal on your forehead," Mito says. 

It's not a request. It's very much an order. Sakura is used to taking orders in the middle of a fight; when someone said aim low, there was no opportunity to aim high because they saw something you didn't and they were trying to make sure you lived. Sasuke had once shouted for her to redirect her kick when she was moments away from making contact; she did, and avoided decimating one of Kankuro's puppets in the process. 

She has not taken orders that weren't meant to save her life for a very long time. 

"And if I do not?"

"Then you will not be leaving Uzushio alive."

Sakura snorted; they wouldn't have let her leave anyway. She was a non-entity. She had appeared from nowhere, for no reason, in the middle of their village. They were going to pick her brain to figure out exactly how she got there until they decided keeping her alive was no longer necessary. 

But they had given Sakura paper and a brush. She didn't know fuinjutsu like Naruto did, didn't take to it as quickly, or found it half as easy, but she knew enough to build the seal that sent her back here in the first place. The seals on her arms may be keeping her chakra tamped down and out of her reach, but Sakura only needed to reverse engineer the seals on the walls, had to find a loophole in the arrays on her arms, and she'd be free. 

It'd take maybe a week. Two and a half, tops. 

Creating the seal on old Uzushio had taken them a month of frantic, wild eyed movement, interrupted by the necessity of fighting. But Sakura was alone now, and she had all the time in the world. 

"As you wish, Mito-sama," Sakura says. 

The Uzumaki princess nods and her guards step closer to flank her. Akira gives her a sneer, but the other man looks almost curious.

Mito makes another hand sign and the seals on her cell bars flare green for the barest moment. Sakura raises her pink eyebrow and starts eating the rest of her porridge. A lightning affinity? Or at least she was the one charging the seal. The other two shinobi hadn't made a move to activate it; perhaps it was an Uzumaki clan secret, or a jutsu of her own special creation. They turn and leave. 

Sakura cracks her knuckles, and she gets to work. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so you know those black circles on naruto's stomach when he's in six paths sage mode? that's essentially what sakura's byakugō looks like now. hope that clears something up in case anybody was confused!
> 
> comments are food for starving artists xx


	3. Chapter 3

Sakura is being watched. 

The man who didn't speak to her yesterday, he is the one watching her. His hair is a strawberry blond, dark in the low light of the cellar. He comes back the very next day after Mito gives Sakura her little assignment. 

Sakura had barely been able to start comprehending the intricate seal work written onto her arms. There was no way a simple reversal could work on this. She had to deconstruct the array on her arms down to its most basic elements before she started to unravel it, or she could risk ruining her chakra pathways for the rest of her life. Or worse, she might just blow up her fucking arms. 

It's not a pleasant thought to find yourself with, in a darkened cell in the middle of what may be the night. Sakura groans and throws the brush against the wall in her frustration, keeping her bum wrist close to her chest in her irritation. The pain had been easily ignored, but she had nothing to bind the damn thing with so it stayed swollen and agitated with her.

She ignores Kurama's insistence that she relax. She can't relax, she has to get out. Sakura hasn't been anyone's captive for years, she hasn't stayed in the same place for longer than a sleep cycle in just as long. She isn't made for tight, enclosed spaces. Not anymore. 

Kurama squeezes at her mind (which is a strange sensation, not unlike having Ino in her head) until she stops drumming her fingers against the floor and lays down to rest. 

The next morning, the man is there. 

He is sitting a polite distance away from her. He has a tray of food on one hand, and a bundle beneath his arm. 

Sakura had been twirling the brush between her fingers, deciding to give the damn Uzumaki what they wanted. Information was valuable, and Sakura had plenty of it. She could make herself an ally to them; could feed them information on the war, on the Senju, and the Uchiha. She could make herself an invaluable asset to the Uzumaki. If she was lucky, she might even be able to convince them to let her broker their alliance with the Senju on the mainland.

It was a long con, longer than she was comfortable with. But until they let her out of this cell, it was the best bet she had. 

So Sakura dips her brush in the ink, ignores her jailor, and begins sketching out a rough outline of a finished Byakugō the way her shishou taught her. 

"Good morning, Tsubaki-san," the man says. 

Ah. It's morning, or he's lying to her to confuse her. Sakura's internal clock was already off considering the constant running and fighting. Being underground hadn't really helped.

"Morning," she replies, still scribbling on the piece of paper in front of her. 

"Did you rest well?"

Sakura blinks up at him, surprise written on her face. Either they were planning on torturing her, or he was trying to make conversation.

"As well as I could," she hedges, "considering the circumstances."

He gives her an awkward smile at that, and approaches her cell with the food and the bundle. 

"Here," he says, tucking the bundle first through the slat at the floor of her cell. "This might help."

She puts her brush down, then waits until his hands are safely back on his side of the cell bars before she picks up the bundle. When she pokes at it and nothing tries to impale her, she opens it. 

It's a fleece blanket wrapped around a small pillow. Sakura rubs her fingers over the material. It's soft, softer than anything she's felt in a long time. She looks up at her jailor, but he's been watching her hold the blanket. 

It's a clever tactic. Treat her kindly to tear her secrets from between her fingers. But Sakura had few Uzumaki fuinjutsu at her disposal. They could have them all. The information about the war in the west would be valuable as well, and Sakura would give that to them, too. She wasn't here to be selfish, she was here to make sure that the future that Naruto had died in (that Ino and Lee and Chouji and Obito and Kakashi-sensei and everyone, everyone else had died in) would never come to pass. 

"Thank you," she manages to say. 

Her jailor nods, then gestures towards her food. 

"You're emaciated," he says, "so we thought it would be best to start you out slowly on non solid food, so you don't go into shock."

The rice porridge is the same, but there's also a small cup of water and a sliced banana. Sakura wraps the blanket around her shoulders before pulling the tray towards her. 

Logically, she knows that the Uzumaki were some of the first to understand medical ninjutsu. While the Nara were experts in medicinal and homeopathic healing, the Uzumaki had figured out how to use chakra to solve the body's ailments. They had spread this knowledge to the Senju with the marriage of Uzumaki Mito to Senju Hashirama. So of course they know by looking at her that Sakura hasn't eaten a large meal in many months if not years, and they know that if they give her rich foods her body will reject them. 

With the blanket hanging over her shoulders, Sakura sips at the cup of water before she starts eating the porridge. 

"My name is Unarigoe Ryo, Tsubaki-san," he says. "It's nice to meet you."

Sakura nods slowly; gods, he was kind. How strange. It had to be an act. Even Naruto's kindness had become strained after so long fighting. 

"Hello, Unarigoe-san," Sakura replies. 

Ryo nods at her, looking happy that she's decided to be cordial with him. 

"I see you've started working on Mito-sama's assignment."

Sakura looks at the piece of paper where she had written instructions on how to store chakra for the seal, what kinds of katas and meditational practices it required. Many of the katas that Sakura had used for her own seal hadn't been invented yet. She had been terribly vague, insisting that anyone who wanted the seal had to use 'suiton style katas, or katas meant for women' instead of calling the Water Lily Style or the Handmaiden's Fist what they were. 

"I have," she says. 

Ryo gives her a smile, and Sakura can see that his eyes are a bright shade of blue. Just like Naruto's. It makes Sakura's heart hurt, so she stuffs her mouth with porridge so she can't say anything that will embarrass her. 

"May I see it?" 

Sakura shrugs, and slides the paper over to the slat. Ryo doesn't pick it up, but he does peer down at it from between the bars. A tidy furrow appears between his brows, and he talks out loud when he reads Sakura's notes. 

"But by this logic, the seal should have a point in the cardinal directions, should it not?"

Sakura nods. 

"Got it in one," she says, snapping her fingers. 

 Ryo looks back up at her, perplexed. 

"But your seal is two circles, Tsubaki-san," he says.

"It is."

"You modified it somehow?"

Sakura shakes her head. 

"It's not my chakra in the seal."

Ryo balks at that, and Sakura can understand why. Storing foreign chakra in a person's body was dangerous. There was a reason medical ninjutsu required precise control; you needed to be able to put your own chakra in and then take it back out when you were finished. More people died from their bodies rejecting poor hearings because of residual medical chakra than from operations themselves.

In her time, it was a present danger but nearly eradicated under Tsunade's iron rule. In this time, it's still not even something people talked about because medical ninjutsu was still in its infancy.

Ryo looks back down at her notes, but he isn't wary as he does it. Instead, he's excited.

"So because the chakra isn't your own," he murmurs, "probably because of a different elemental affinity, I think - With a person's individual affinity, the four cardinal directions, the diamond shape you have drawn here - this shape requires those directions for balance, yes? Because one affinity, at the center, it needs to be offset with the other elemental transformations."

This Uzushio shinobi is  _geeking out_ over her Byakugō. Sakura puts more food in her mouth to keep herself from laughing. 

"But because there's more than one natural affinity in the seal, the edges evened out," Ryo says, rubbing his chin as he stares down at Sakura's notes. "But a full circle! Your affinities must have been like fire and water!"

"Earth and air, actually," she says, after swallowing a mouthful. 

It's only partially a lie. Kurama was literally made of chakra. He had no affinity, and he had every affinity. He rounded out her seal just by existing inside of her. But Naruto had a wind affinity, and part of a lie was easier than telling the whole truth.

Ryo looks up at her and through his excitement, his shoulders slump. 

"They must have been very dear to you," he says, "for you to carry their chakra around like this." 

Sakura puts a slice of banana in her mouth. Talking about it should be fine. She should be okay. It happened a lifetime ago, and yet it only happened weeks ago. And for all she knew, it was still happening. The people she loved, the people who had put their faith in her; gone. All gone. 

"Yes," she says when her throat threatens to close up. "They were."

All of them. Every last one. 

* * *

Ryo visits her once a day, and sits with her while she eats the meals he brings. 

He is always polite. He announces his presence even when he is far away, and Sakura has already sensed him coming. He puts down the food and then slides it through the slat, keeping his hands to himself until Sakura takes the tray. Then he places his hands back in his lap where she can see them, and he strikes up the conversation. 

Mito and Akira must have been outliers; Ryo is friendly to a  _fault._

When Sakura doesn't talk, he babbles about his family. About his mother and his father and his uncles and his aunties and his baby cousins, except everyone on Uzushio calls each other cousin, so sometimes that gets just about as ridiculous as Sakura would have expected. He talks about his cat and about his younger sister Risa. He dutifully avoids anything related to Fire Country, the war happening there, or Uzushio politics. 

She does learn however, that Uzushio food is made up primarily of all kinds of noodles and spices and sweets. And she learns that there are festivals for everything, and that days when more than one child are born on the same day are celebrated by the whole island. 

She learns when she gives Ryo the finished notes on her Byakugō that the sharing of fuinjutsu is considered a sacred thing, a mark of friendship. It's the way that newly married couples will decorate their houses, with each of them side by side designing wards for their household then combining them in a collaborative effort that symbolizes the way two families become one. 

Sakura wonders what seals Naruto's parents shared with each other, if they followed that old tradition. She wonders what seal Naruto would have given to Sasuke, if they had the chance. Ryo regales her with stories about his auntie and uncle and how their combined wards made their house smell like lilacs in the early wet spring.

"Where are you from, Tsubaki-san?" he asks, on the heels of a story about his grandmother. 

Sakura can see the moment his eyes sharpen on her, even though Ryo's face is as kind and guileless as it ever was. She had been writing down how to constantly store chakra into the Byakugō without meditating, and she stills her brush at the question. 

"Fire Country," she replies. 

There were no villages, no places like Uzushio. Whirlpool Country belonged to itself, and still ruled its waters so effectively that the invasion that wiped them out was the only one in their history. 

"Do you have any siblings?" Ryo asks. 

Sakura shakes her head and steadies her hand. If she's not careful, she'll get blotches on the paper, and that won't do. 

"None."

"Your parents?"

"Long dead."

Ryo deflates at that. 

"I'm sorry for your loss, Tsubaki-san."

Sakura shrugs. It was an old hurt, one that had calloused a long time ago. Her parents had died trying to evacuate the last of the civilians. It had been a long time ago, before the war had stretched into a year. There hadn't been time to mourn them, and there hadn't been anything to bury. She compartmentalized and she moved on, because she had to. 

"I had teammates, though," she adds, feeling awkward. 

She licks her lips, and pulls her blanket around her shoulders once more. It's a comfort, and one she appreciates. Ryo had brought her a bed roll after the first couple of days, so that she was not laying completely on the hard ground. That was how she knew she probably wasn't going to be executed when she finished her notes. That and the fact that Ryo had kept coming, and not the snippy Akira. 

The leaders of Uzushio either weren't sure of what to do with her once she was finished, or they were going to let her live. It was one of the two. Sakura was inclined to believe that she was going to survive this little stint in Whirlpool, but not that she was going to be allowed to leave as quickly as she might like. 

"They were my brothers," she says, a fond smile coming over her lips. "They bickered like they were married."

Ryo laughs at that. He's dressed plainly, but the topknot in his hair makes Sakura wonder just how important he is on the island. In the portraits of her that she can remember, Uzumaki Mito had two buns and Uzumaki Kushina reportedly had red hair that flowed down to her back. Perhaps long hair was a sign of rank, or of strength among the Uzumaki. Long hair was a show of strength among all shinobi; to wear it, you had to be strong enough to ensure that no one would ever be able to use it against you. Senju Hashirama, Uchiha Madara; they had only been the beginning. 

But Ryo's topknot is decorated with a gold clip that Sakura is pretty sure not everyone in Uzushio is allowed to wear. The more she thinks about it, the orange haired man that had been with Mito several days ago, his hair had been pulled back into a tight ponytail, with a similar ornament keeping it in place. 

"What were they like?"

Sakura's stomach clenches. Her mouth feels dry and her lips are chapped. Ryo notices her immediate discomfort. 

"You don't have to say, Tsubaki-san," he says. "I'm sorry for imposing."

"Their names," she breathes through her grief, "were Naruto and Sasuke."

"Naruto?" Ryo asks. "Really?" 

She shrugs; she can't say he was named after a character in a novel who was named after the food topping. Jiraiya was nowhere near a twinkle in his father's eye, and his Utterly Gutsy shinobi were a long ways off as well. 

And that gets her thinking about Jiraiya and his family, or Orochimaru and his. Tsunade by far was the most well adjusted of her team. Jiraiya was an orphan, but leaned on the Sandaime for paternal support. Orochimaru was of the snake clans from Grass Country. Sakura wasn't sure how she could prevent him from going bad other than stopping the First and Second Wars in the first place. 

He had become an ally towards the end. Not one that Sakura even remotely trusted, but one that had fought against his own extinction. His obsession with living forever was not satisfied with Kaguya's Infinite Tsukuyomi. It had to be real, or else it was nothing. 

"His mother loved ramen," she replies. "And I mean she  _loved_ it."

Ryo nods, a laugh coming out underneath his breath. 

"Clearly," he says. "I can think of a couple of people on the island who love noodles just enough to name their kids after the stuff."

Sakura snorts, and tugs her blanket tighter around her shoulders. 

"Oh, really, hail storm-san?" she teases. 

He makes an affronted sound, a huffy noise and points at her. 

"Your hair is pink and your parents named you Tsubaki!" he yelps. "That's not very clever either, camellia-san!"

Her hand shoots to her close cropped hair, and she rubs her fingers over her scalp with a few moments of hesitance. Her parents had wanted to name her Sumire, after her father's mother. Then she had come out with pink hair, which didn't exactly match the violets for her namesake. So Sakura it had been. 

"You can talk about cleverness when you stop being a hail storm from hurricane island," she snips. 

Ryo's jaw drops, and then he laughs. He honest to goodness laughs at her. Sakura smiles even though the movement feels odd and unpracticed on her face. 

"You should hear the names of the others on the island," he says.

Sakura wants to tell him that her name used to be Haruno, a field of spring in the Village Hidden in the Leaves. She bites her tongue. Her family originated in Stone as samurai. They had come to Konoha due to an old alliance with the Uchiha for back up, but their family had dwindled down to Sakura's mother by the time Sakura was born.

She couldn't claim the Haruno now. Not without disrupting their vows with the Uchiha, especially considering the eye sitting in her skull. 

"Is everyone named after a force of nature?" she asks wryly. 

Ryo gives a light shrug, and a sheepish kind of smile on his face. 

"Pretty much," he replies. 

"What about this Sasuke of yours?" he asks, an obvious change of subject. 

Sakura doesn't stiffen; she forces her muscles to stay relaxed. 

"A bastard," she replies. "Who really liked snakes."

Ryo gives a visible shudder. Sakura smirks. 

"Not a big fan of them?" she asks. 

Ryo shakes his head vigorously. 

"Not even a little bit!"

Sakura drops her hands into her lap, and shoves the knuckles of her good hand against her knee. They pop loudly. Her fingernails are down to nothing and her callouses are so thick it's a wonder she can feel anything on her hands. 

"Naruto liked toads," she adds helpfully. "He wasn't a bastard. He was the best. Sweetest boy in the world, ask anyone."

"Even Sasuke?" Ryo asks, lifting a brow. 

A memory so vicious it almost takes her breath away; a moment, Sasuke taking a hold of Naruto's nubbins for the first time. Sasuke, choked up but dry eyed. 'Usuratonkachi' under his breath and a grueling lesson on how to wield a sword with Naruto's remaining hand. A different moment, Sasuke reaching for a hand that wasn't there and Naruto hiccuping on the phantom feeling of his own fingers, reaching out with his opposite hand and grabbing onto Sasuke with a desperation Sakura remembers herself reaching for Ino with.  

"Especially Sasuke," she replies, voice coming out softer than she had anticipated. 

Ryo deflates a little bit, and it's strange how sensitive to her mood he seems to be. How many deserters from the wars on the mainland came through Uzushio, and how many of them had Ryo handled in situations like these?

"And what about you, Tsubaki-san?" 

Sakura looks up into Ryo's grey eyes. He looks softly at her, kindly. Abruptly, she is overwhelmed with the desperate desire to hug this stranger whose kindness, whose heart reminds her so much of Naruto's. 

"What about me?" 

Ryo cracks a little grin and says, "Did you like slugs?"

It shocks a laugh out of her. He can't know about her summons, about their summons. Few people had summoning contracts this far into the past. People had to more formally request contracts, and there was little time to do that during a war. There were legends of the sage regions by now, myths passed down through families that spread across nations. But Sakura couldn't be sure whether or not anyone in Uzushio had a summoning contract with the snakes, the toads, or the slugs. 

Ryo was making a joke.

"I did!"

Ryo smiles at her sudden laughter and leans his elbows onto his knees and pulls up his sleeves.

"I'll have you know I'm the mushi-ken champion this side of the island," he says, offering her his left hand made into a fist on his right palm. 

Sakura puts her right fist on her left palm and raises an eyebrow at him. There wasn't time for games towards the end. But she remembers fondly Kakashi and Gai-sensei's jan-ken-pon challenges, remembers playing with the Konoha Eleven to see who was paying for snacks or who got to pick the movie with the others between Naruto's departure from and return to the village. 

But now? She was already in a cage. Where was the harm in playing a hand game?

"I wiped the floor with Naruto whenever we played," Sakura warns. 

"Oh yeah?"

They tap their fists on their palms three times before Sakura puts up her curved index finger and Ryo sticks out his thumb. Ryo's eyes narrow and Sakura sticks her tongue out at him. 

"Snake beats toad," she coos. 

Ryo puts his fist onto his palm again, eyes still narrowed. 

"Best two out of three."

They play until Ryo has to leave, and Sakura goes to sleep that night not feeling particularly guilty about the laughter that fumbled out of her mouth. 

* * *

He brings her ramen with extra narutomaki one day, and Sakura's smile is so broad it threatens to split the corners of her mouth. He brings her shio ramen because he thinks it's the most neutral, and he didn't want to accidentally bring her something too spicy or too bland. Salty seemed like a safe in between.

It's the first time she's allowed to have solid food, the first time she's allowed to have meat as well. She can only stomach a little more than half of it, and Ryo brings a pitcher of water in case the salt proves to be too much for her stomach. He's happy to play her waiter, and stays with her longer than usual to ask her questions as her appetite returns and she attempts to finish the rest of her bowl.

"Where are your toad and snake now, Tsubaki-san?" he asks.

Sakura bites down on her chopsticks entirely by accident, so hard that she nearly snaps them in half. She takes her chopsticks back out of her mouth and chews thoughtfully, trying to gather the mess of panic that's rising at the back of her throat.

"Gone," Sakura replies.

Ryo's eyes are kind, but his body posture tells her that he won't be backing off today.  

"The war?" he asks. 

Sakura nods. 

"We - The seal that sent me here," she begins, carefully choosing her words. She doesn't need them to trust her, but she does need them to be interested enough in her that they'll let her out. 

"It was an experiment," she continues, "with transportation seals. We wanted to use them to regroup if we ever got separated."

She tugs the blanket near her legs up around her shoulders, now a familiar comfort. She hasn't been given new clothes, so she's aware that both she and the blanket stink. But the fleece is soft and warm on her bare arm, and Sakura likes the security it provides. 

"But we were ambushed," she says, heart leaping into her throat. "Naruto activated the seal before I could help in the fighting."

It was the truth. If he was listening to her heart with chakra enhanced ears, he wouldn't hear a hiccup. Kakashi-sensei had always taught them that telling the truth was the best way to lie. Still, it makes Sakura's stomach turn to think of it. 

"I heard him die," she breathes. "Naruto. I - I heard him -"

She devolves from there. Her mouth hangs open on the words and she can't make herself say them again. Ryo is so damnably kind. He waits until the tears come, waits while she wipes at them as they tumble over her cheeks and onto the soft blanket wrapped around her shoulders. 

"What about Sasuke?" 

She shakes her head. 

"Anyone that could take down Naruto could take down Sasuke," she says with the upmost conviction. The two had been so evenly matched towards the end, it boggled her mind. Insecurity had tried, in her more introspective moments to creep in along her spine. Sakura didn't have the time for it. 

"And he was injured," she adds a beat later. If they thought she had an attachment still alive in Fire Country, they'd try to ransom her if they could. They'd be less likely to let her have the ears of their elder council if she was not without attachments. 

Still. It sticks in her craw. In all likelihood, Sasuke was alive, back in her time. Alive and fighting still for his life. If he ever had enough chakra, if there were anyone in the world who could do it, who could reach back through time and join her, it would be him. 

It was a silly thing to hope for. Better to behave as if he were just as dead as Naruto was. She was alone in the past. Well, she was alone with a slim piece of Kurama. It was safer to pretend that everyone she loved was gone. Because they were. 

"That must have been one hell of a seal you three thought up," Ryo says, letting out a low whistle. 

Sakura shrugs with one shoulder. 

"Naruto and I weren't focused when we were charging it," she explains. "We were thinking east, and we laid out the array for east, towards the Uzushio Strait, but not Uzushio proper."

She wipes at her eyes and wonders how puffy her face looks after the cry. She touches gingerly around Obito's eye; the bandages that cover it are a little wet. She knows she should change them, but she doesn't have the supplies and she isn't sure how Ryo or his superiors will react if she takes to making requests. 

"Then the ambush, and well," Sakura says, voice going into silence. "There was enough chakra in the seal by then to move two people, but I was the only one on it."

"So instead of the beaches, you end up in the middle of Uzushio proper," Ryo answers. 

Sakura nods. 

"It's a miracle you didn't end up in the sea," he comments. "Transportation fuinjutsu usually only works when you know the place you're going to. The fact that it sent you so off course…"

He gives her an appraising look then. Sakura's aware that she's gained some of her weight back, and that even before her thin body was still wrought with hard packed muscle toned from constant fighting. She's never looked like much, but with her short hair and her bandaged face, she looks like even less. 

Still. It is the first time Ryo looks at her the way shinobi look at each other; he's sizing her up for a fight. 

"You and your friend had quite a bit of chakra between the two of you."

"We did."

"Which of you was it," he asks, "that had been to the beaches along the Uzushio Strait?" 

The answer was none of them until they all journeyed to Whirlpool Country together for the sake of the damn seal and the wild plan that kept them awake at night. 

"Sasuke," she says. 

Because the smallest and fastest of his snakes had been the one to tell them that Uzushio was empty, ransacked of the chakra built into the wards of the village but still filled with knowledge.

"He knew the approximate distance from where we were to the Strait, and he gave us his guessed travel distance in kilometers," she says. "But Naruto's chakra pushed me over the Strait and onto the island."

"Why wasn't your seal charged enough to send three people, Tsubaki-san?"

She knows why he has to ask the question, but it doesn't endear him to her.

"He was on guard duty," she says. "Naruto had finished charging it with his own chakra, and was leaving to retrieve Sasuke when we were ambushed."

Gods, it feels like filing a verbal mission report with Tsunade. Except she doesn't owe Ryo answers for kage and country. 

"And you were going to aid them when Naruto-san activated the seal and sent you here by yourself?"

She can hear his scream, bouncing, rattling around the inside of her skull. Kurama feels far away, much too far away to ask for help silencing her own mind. She nods instead of answering. 

"They loved you, Tsubaki-san."

She stops gnawing her lower lip as soon as he says it. She tastes her own blood, but Ryo doesn't falter at the sight of it. 

"I'm very sorry that you lost them."

Sakura nods, and swallows hard. 

"I am, too."

She fiddles with her chopsticks to have something to do. Then she starts eating because she feels a little hollow, and she needs that feeling to go away. 

His next question, when he asks it, she's not expecting but is absolutely ready for. 

"Are you still loyal to the forces you fought with during the war?"

Sakura hadn't been loyal to Konohagakure since it fell, since the truth of the Uchiha Massacre became public knowledge among the survivors, since there were no perpetrators around to punish. She had been loyal to Tsunade until the end. To Kankuro. To Terumi Mei. To Ino. To Naruto and to Sasuke. But it had been a long time since she had been a shinobi of the Leaf instead of one survivor among a precious few. 

"I am loyal to my comrades," she replies. "I am loyal to their memories. But I am an orphan with no family name. We were all orphans without names. We ran from the fighting whenever it got too close."

"Then who taught you how to fight?" Ryo asks, looking puzzled. 

Sakura shrugs. 

"Other orphans," she says plainly. "The ones who lived until twenty taught the rest of us what they knew. Naruto's parents died in the fighting when he was born. Sasuke's died when he was eight, maybe nine."

Sakura pulls her knees up to her chest and drops her chin onto them. 

"His parents taught him all they could before they died. So did mine. We taught Naruto what we knew. And he taught us how to forage, how to survive."

"And what side were your parents on? And Sasuke-san's?"

Sakura weighs her options in her mind, opening her mouth to answer and then closing it. 

"Sasuke's family fought with the Uchiha," she says, answering honestly. 

Ryo's face tightens just a little bit. His jaw goes the barest bit slack when Sakura follows up with, "Mine for the Senju."

A little lie, but pinning Sasuke with the Senju would be too difficult for now. She could lie well enough for herself; creating a false Uchiha when Uzushio wasn't even interested in forging an alliance with that clan was the clever thing to do. Besides, in her time, there was a Senju that Sakura fought for. The last of the Senju, to be exactly.

"But -," Ryo rubs a hand over his face, clearly flabbergasted. "How? Those families - the two of you would have had no reason to trust each other."

Sakura shakes her head, feeling a little bit sad. 

"We were children," she replies. "And we were alone, with no one but each other. It was band together or die. We did not want to die."

Sakura can tell that Ryo is re-evaluating what he's going to tell to his superiors based on her answers. Sakura had just given him gold; she had information on the way both the warring families in the west behaved and fought. She was an invaluable resource for Uzushio, and she had fallen right into their lap. 

"We fought to protect ourselves," Sakura goes on. "We stayed away from the fighting. I'm still not sure who ambushed us, but I'm positive whoever it was knew that Sasuke or I weren't fighting on the right side, and were coming to claim us."

Neutrality was the same as picking death. It was the one thing that had stuck with every student when they went over the Founders Era. Every clan, every samurai, every shinobi picked a side at these times. 

Ryo knows this, too. And suddenly he's aware of the peril Sakura has been in for what he will suppose, has been her entire life. She has been doing a very dangerous dance, and it caught up with her just in time to kill the only two people she had in the world. Now she was alone, in a foreign land, with a tie to the family that the Uzumaki were seeking to get into political talks with. 

"I've seen a lot of how ugly the world can be, Unarigoe-san," she says, "how cruel it can be to children. I don't want the next generation to grow up during this constant warring. So if you ask me what side I'm on, I'd have to say..."

She decides that if she can't change the future from Fire Country, then Uzushio will have to do.

"I'm on the side of peace."

* * *

She is dreaming Obito's memories. She is in love with Rin, and she desperately, desperately wants to beat Kakashi at something, at  _anything_. She wants Minato-sensei to teach her the Hiraishin. She wants the clan elders to look at her like she's someone to be proud of, instead of someone to be ignored. 

Then there is the boulder, and she is moving before she can think, and her body aches, dear gods, everything hurts. And she's dying. But then she isn't. And then there are the Zetsus who look after her. And there is Madara. 

Then Rin. She's dying. She's gone. And Kakashi did it. Then Kiri and the Mizukage. Then Minato-sensei and Kushina and their baby. Naruto. Then Itachi and the massacre. Then the war, on and on, over and over again the war. Obito's memories bleed into Sakura's. She's staring down at Obito, looking down at her green eye in his face and then Kaguya is peering into the dimension and the Zetsus are clawing their way towards them and Obito is fighting and she uses her power to take herself away as he destroys them. 

Naruto's face. Sasuke's face. Pinched. Furrowed. Deep in concentration. She watches them watch each other, turns a blind eye when they get close enough to touch. She remembers the seal, drawing it, forming it, painstakingly. She remembers leaving it to fight. She remembers every punch, every breath, every moment she used Obito's Sharingan to deflect or anticipate or dodge. 

She can still see Sasuke's face as he returned to them, shouting that they had to go. She can remember Naruto's howl of frustration. The split second between his decision to stay and help her or go and help Sasuke. She remembers him scream, the sound of his hand on the seal, pouring his chakra, pouring  _Kurama's_ chakra into the seal, into her so that she'd stand a chance. 

She had seen a split second of him dying. Had heard it more than anything. She had turned just the barest bit. Had seen a flash of gold, of beautiful, bright burning gold. Then she was gone. 

It repeats over and over and over again and Sakura is clawing at her eye in her sleep. She wants it gone. She wants it  _out._ The Sharingan gave the user a photographic memory, but she does not need memories in her sleep. She needs rest. She needs quiet, peaceful, black  _rest._

"Tsubaki-san," a voice calls. 

Sakura doesn't know anybody named Tsubaki. She remembers the flowers. Her memories of them are her own, not made with the eye, but they are vivid nevertheless. Ino had taught her about them. Beautiful, vibrant flowers. Full of color. White and pink and red. Camellias. 

"Tsubaki-san, wake up."

Naruto again. Sasuke again. Her friends, her comrades, all around her dying like flies. Obito again. Obito's memories. The war he caused. This was his fault.  _His fault._

"Tsubaki!"

She snaps awake with her arms outstretched, desperate to wrap around Ryo's throat. He's making a hand seal, and Sakura's arms are stiff. 

She's wild eyed and breathless; he's too close. The door of her cell is wide open. A tray of food is sitting just outside. She'd thrown her blanket off in her sleep. She's sweating. 

Her chest rises and falls rapidly, and Ryo holds the seal that keeps her still. 

"Your eye, Tsubaki-san," he says. "It's bleeding."

The bandage is damp. She notices it like it isn't important. Obito's eye is wide open behind the bandage, and through the gauze it tracks the minute ways Ryo's face twitches with displeasure. 

"That is a dangerous injury to go unchecked, Tsubaki-san."

She grinds her teeth and tries to calm her jackrabbiting heart. She counts to ten. Then she starts listing birthdays. Her mother's, her father's, hers. Then Ino's. Then Sasuke's. Naruto's. Kakashi's. Tsunade's. Shizune's. 

"I can have one of our healers come in and take a look at it, Tsubaki-san."

"No."

He blinks at that, but holds his ground. Sakura's arms are still outstretched, vying for his throat. It would be so easy to squeeze the life out of it. She lists birthdays backwards. Starts with Naruto's, and goes on until she gets to Tsunade's. She breathes in and then breathes out. 

"I can fix it myself," she grinds out. "Bandages. I need new bandages."

Ryo nods, albeit a little hesitantly. Then, miracle of miracles, he releases the hand seal and produces a roll of bandages from a fold in his tidy robes. He places it down next to her hip. The jutsu remains active until he leaves her cell and gets on the other side of the bars. Then he releases her. 

Sakura's arms fall back down heavily at her sides. She scrambles to sit up and gives her back to Ryo. She cycles her chakra through her body to find the cause of the damage to the eye; overexertion. The Sharingan must have activated itself during her dreams because of her agitated emotional state. Obito's eye was worn; strong but deteriorating.

She heals the damage internally without the showy displays of the Mistic Palm, and carefully uses the roll of gauze Ryo had left with her to re-bind her eye, and redirects some to go to the wrist Mito had cracked those many days ago in her show of strength..

It doesn't occur to her until later, after the panic of the dreams has slipped from between her fingertips and the Sharingan is resting, that she can use her chakra again. That Ryo hadn't only released her arms, but had unleashed her chakra coils as well. 

For now, she lays down after the brief healing, exhausted, but she doesn't keep her back to Ryo. She turns back around and puts her head back on the little pillow he had given her. She watches him carefully slide her meal through the slat and towards her. 

She tries to stay awake, but despite her best efforts, she falls asleep facing Ryo. Even without the Sharingan, she notices his pained expression. 

When she wakes up and the room feels off, she only has to reach out and brush her fingers against her cell bars to know why. Ryo never reactivated the wards. 

* * *

Despite being fully aware of the fact that she could now destroy the bars with her bare hands, Sakura takes pause. 

She had only been asleep for a couple of hours, but there was no way that Ryo simply forgot to reactivate the lightning based seals on the bars. Uzushio was isolated, but there were wars going on everywhere outside of the island. An accident like that was a peacetime mistake, and by no means was the Founders Era a peaceful one.

Ryo didn't have the authority to just - not activate them either. Which meant that someone from higher up had given him the order. Which meant that they no longer saw Sakura as a threat. 

Sakura breathes in and out, sitting on her bedroll. It worked. Or at least, it was working. Now, she needed a more concrete plan. It wouldn't be enough to just hope that she would get placed in an advisory position immediately. She had to press forward, had to move carefully. She'd likely be assigned some kind of guard for her first couple of months in Uzushio, and she needed to win their trust first before she could even think of gaining unfettered access to the councils that ran the village. 

Absently, she can hear Kurama swiping his paws through the cool water of her seal. 

 _'You're only getting this close because they want you to,'_ he rumbles, ever the killjoy. 

Sakura pouts. 

 _'Make no mistake,'_ he says.  _'I was sealed in Mito when she was twenty. I know how she thinks and how the Uzumaki think. If you make one false move, that's it.'_

"I'm pretty sure I can handle it," Sakura murmurs, rolling onto her side. "I dealt with Sasuke, didn't I?"

She flexes the feeling of her chakra running freely through her body despite the seals written over her arms. She wonders if they will be removed now, or if they will stay on until she is completely trusted. She doesn't like the idea of being in the middle of a fight and having to worry about whether or not her ninjutsu will blow up in her body because an Uzumaki on the battlefield has decided she can't be trusted. 

Kurama snorts. 

 _'You think the Uchiha are bad?'_ he asks.  _'You ain't seen nothing yet.'_

That sends a shiver down her spine. Naruto had told her about Nagato, and Sakura had seen Karin. The Uzumaki kindness, their hearts, their capacity for love and tenderness was extraordinarily large for a clan that had almost been decimated with the Kiri genocide. But it was that same love, that same kindness that made them more than ferocious in battle. It made them strong enough to tear the world to shreds only to piece it back together again in a newer, more peaceful image. 

Nagato had destroyed the world for peace. So had the Uchiha. 

A shiver runs down Sakura's spine; Kurama is absolutely right. 

_'Look alive, brat.'_

The sound of footsteps catches Sakura's ears, and she scrambles to sit upright. Ryo is approaching with a tray of food once again and another small -but this time white- bundle, but there are two others with him. One is Akira, and the other is a woman whose dusky pink hair reminds Sakura achingly of her father's. The hair is swept up in a bun decorated with a pair of vibrant purple tama kanzashi. All three of them sit with Ryo at the middle. He places her tray of food down, but doesn't give it to her. 

Sakura's mouth quirks up in a grim smile; they'll let her eat once she tells them what they want to hear. 

"Tsubaki-san," Ryo says, "may I introduce Tatsumaki Akira and Nobi Minako."

Akira nods his head, still looking as irate as he had the first time she saw him. His fine golden comb is still holding his ponytail in place the same way Ryo's topknot is held by his clip, and Minako's bun is held by her tama kanzashi. 

"Based on the fuinjutsu you've provided and the information you have on the wars in Fire Country, the councils of Uzushio would like to offer you refugee status within our borders."

The air goes out of Sakura in a huff. She wonders if they'd noticed that her Byakugō notes were deliberately vague at times, and incredibly detailed in others. She wonders how much Ryo has told them about the second kind of chakra hiding in her seal, and about the way her covered eye weeps blood. 

They want her because she is unattached, but they won't trust her for the same reason. Even children knew what loyalty was, and how much it cost during the wars. The death of one's parents could cause one to go rogue, but it wasn't common. They knew that. They wouldn't let her off the island for now; there would be a probationary period of some months, maybe even years. Sakura didn't have years worth of time. 

But Sakura had also managed to seal someone else's chakra within her own body. The fuinjutsu that would give rise to sealing bijuu wouldn't be invented until Uzumaki Mito herself created it in another couple of years; Sakura's knowledge and her chakra control were invaluable in this world. They'd probably throw an entire fit when she showed them a rudimentary chakra scalpel. 

"If you choose to accept this offer," Ryo continues, "you'll be placed with a family who will monitor your progress while you acclimate to our climate and our culture. You'll have regular meetings with fuinjutsu specialists to give them your knowledge, access to our libraries so that you may extend it, and you will be asked to sit in on minor council meetings to explain your expertise on Fire Country and the war."

'Minor council meetings' probably meant sitting silently until she was spoken to, or waiting in another room and relaying her knowledge to one person while they ferried it into the actual council meeting. Sakura suppressed a snort; it was like those damnable kunoichi lessons in her academy days all over again. Except now she had to mean it and Ino wasn't there to laugh with her after the fact.

"Which family will I be paired with?" she asks after a moment of silence. 

"Based on your interactions," Nobi Minako says, sliding into the conversation, "Unarigoe-san determined it would be best if you lived with my family, the Nobi."

Sakura is abruptly aware that while Ryo told her about his family, he didn't tell her very much about the others on the island. Uzushio may have birthed the Uzumaki, and they may be her strongest clan, but no state during the Founders Era was anything without the supplementary clans that supported those like the Nara supported the Senju or the Haruno supported the Uchiha.

Sakura bows her head to Minako in a show of respect and says, "I'll be in your care, then."

"You accept our offer?" Akira asks, raising a fine orange eyebrow at her. 

Sakura breathes slowly, and leaves her hands on her knees where all three shinobi can see them.

"I am an orphan," she says, "with no remaining family. The two that I called my brothers are dead and an ocean away. I would have been at your mercy regardless of what choice I made." 

It's information that all of them know, but it never hurts to repeat to your captor why you're such a model captive. 

"There is nothing for me left outside of Uzushio," she presses. "When my family died they left me with no way to fulfill their oaths to the Senju. I had to scavenge, to fight, to survive on my own for  _years._ "

"Tsubaki-san -," 

Sakura puts up a hand and Ryo closes his mouth on what he was going to say. It's important to provide a convincing performance. If there's one thing she learned from Naruto, it's that throwing an inspirational speech at an Uzumaki can get them to do just about anything. 

"Then I met two other orphans," she murmurs, "and we became a family, and my oaths were to them alone. We were children in the wilderness. We were alone. We survived not because one's family was allied to the Uchiha and mine to the Senju, but because we understood the necessity of cooperation and the cost of letting vows made by our parents dictate the way we behaved towards each other."

Minako's face is impassive as ever, but Ryo looks as sad and contemplative as he had the first time she told him her story. Akira looks at her, considering something. It's a look that would be at home on Kakashi-sensei's face.

"My brothers are dead because we chose survival over oath keeping," she says. "Because we chose to live, to survive in peace with each other instead of being a pair of children killing each other in the forests."

She remembers how the Senju and Uchiha had sent children into battle. It strikes her abruptly that the Uzumaki never had. There were no records of it, because they kept to themselves until they made their alliance with the Senju. Suddenly, Sakura's sob story seems a little more poignant to herself. 

"If Uzushio wants my knowledge on the war in Fire Country for the sake of peace, if you want my Byakugō seal to protect your people, your elders and your children, then you can have everything I know."

"And if we want your expertise for war?" Minako asks. 

Sakura stands and walks over to her cell bars. She gets on her knees before them, and pushes up the only sleeve of her blue turtleneck. She reveals her sealed arms to those who may have put them there. She lays her hands on the bars of her cell; they don't electrocute her. 

"These seals have dug so deep into my tenketsu system that one pulse of Unarigoe-san or Tatsumaki-san's chakra could cook me from the inside out."

Sakura gathers next to zero chakra into her palms, just enough to make them buzz. Towards the end, she had gained Tsunade's strength the way Tsunade had the first time around; something earned through constant fighting until throwing a full grown man across a battlefield was no feat to be balked at. Tsunade's chakra supplemented her extraordinary strength; it never gave her that strength in the first place.

The chakra on her palms makes them feel itchy at hot, but it jumps at the bit to be used again. Sakura squeezes the bars between her hands until they resemble crumpled pieces of paper. Akira forms a hand sign and Sakura can abruptly feel her arms go slack and her chakra recede into her reserves. 

"I will not be used as a tool of war," Sakura says simply. "If I find that I am, I will do whatever it takes to ensure that I die."

Ryo is grinding his teeth, but Minako looks thoughtful instead of bored. Akira holds up the hand sign that binds Sakura's arms at her sides. There is a moment of terse silence as they chew on her meaning; refugee status would not protect her if she harmed an Uzushio shinobi. Her execution would not be murder, it would be an assisted suicide. 

"Unarigoe-san," Minako says, "I'll take her."

Sakura looks to Minako. She's a decent looking woman, probably a little older than thirty. Not too young to be the head of a clan; probably just old enough to make that kind of a decision. Sakura gives her a smile. Minako nods at her. 

"Tatsumaki-san, release her. She's under my jurisdiction now."

Akira narrows his eyes at her, but follows the directive. Sakura's arms belong to herself again. She flexes her fingers at her sides. Ryo, who still looks flabbergasted at her forwardness slides both the food and the small white bundle into her cell. The food is three onigiri, two filled with salmon and the third with umeboshi. She eats them tidily, but faster than she usually would, mostly because the new clothes suggest that she's going outside and Sakura has been yearning to feel sunlight for however long she's been stuck underground.

Her stomach feels tight when she finishes eating, but once she does, Minako coughs prettily into her hand. Akira and Ryo both rise and turn around while Minako performs a number of hand signs that dissolve the bars of the cell into nothing. She steps inside, picks up the white bundle, and averts her eyes as Sakura undresses and toes herself out of her shoes.

"I'm ready, Nobi-san," she says, suddenly concerned about her ultra modern underwear. 

Her breasts were bound in a sports bra, and her underwear was a pair of black boy shorts. She can't see Minako's face, but hopefully her status as a foreigner will excuse her undergarments. 

It's been a long time since she put on a kimono, but Minako is quick to help her. It's got a weight to it unlike typical fabric, and it's high necked. It's probably made of old armored silk, the art of making which had been lost between the Founders and Sakura's era. The fabric is primarily white and pale purple, decorated sparsely with flowery details in soft pinks and darker purples. It's mostly plain, Minako fits the obi tight around Sakura's waist and runs her fingers along her silhouette to make sure the fabric is falling the right way.

"You've no hair for a pin that will identify you as one of my clan's charges," Minako says, "so this will have to do."

The haori Minako holds up is a dark purple with the Uzushio spiral in dark red sewn onto the shoulders. On the back is a triskelion of three stark white flames chasing each other in a slim golden circle. She lets Minako help her into that as well, and it settles tidily over her shoulders. The dark pink haired woman tsk's at Sakura's choice of footwear, but helps them onto her feet again as well. 

"You're a little thing, but shoes are harder to size from a glance," Minako says. 

She's careful to stay on the side of Sakura's remaining green eye. She doesn't make a move to tidy Sakura's close cropped hair, but steps back to give her a once over. 

"Wear this haori whenever you step outside my clan's compound," Minako instructs. "You'll switch to pins when you've grown enough hair for them, and then you'll wear them at all times outside of the compound instead."

"Of course, Nobi-san."

"You'll be a Nobi from now on for all intents and purposes," Minako says brusquely. "Everything you do will reflect back on my clan."

Sakura nods once. Minako was taking a chance on putting her up. She hoped for her sake as well as for her own that she wouldn't have any cause to bring any horror onto the Nobi family. She rolls the name around in her mind. Nobi Tsubaki. 

Minako gives her a clap on the back and offers her a hand to help her out of her cell. 

"With a face like that you must be used to getting stared at," the older woman says wryly. "Pay them no mind. Keep your eyes forward and follow Unarigoe-san and Tatsumaki-san."

Sakura squares her shoulders. 

"Yes, Nobi-san."

She doesn't ask where Ryo and Akira will be taking her. She has a pretty good guess. 

She follows Minako out of her cell, and lets the woman keep a tender hold on Sakura's elbow. It's a hold that can change from delicate to bone breaking in an instant, she knows. She licks her lips as Minako says, "We're ready," and Ryo and Akira lead them out of the underground prison, up and out of the facility and into the sun. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not everybody on this island can be named uzumaki, can they??? i think the heck NOT. i figured because uzumaki means maelstrom that storm themed names would work for the island. a maelstrom is kind of like, the head bitch of storms, so here are the following storm families in order of rank/power in uzushio! 
> 
> tatsumaki means tornado.  
> nobi means wildfire.  
> unarigoe means hail storm.  
> hisame means ice storm.  
> fubuki means snow storm.  
> raiu means thunderstorm
> 
> the rest of the families will be arriving in the next chapter! 
> 
> mushi-ken is the hand game that the legendary sannin's summons originated from! which explains why they're always so evenly matched when they go head to head with one another! and why sausage nart and my bbby girl are so strong when they fight as One.
> 
> also!! we're aging sakura at 20 here with mito at 18. hashirama's also gonna be in his v early 20's by the time he shows up.
> 
> comments are food for starving artists xx


	4. Chapter 4

Uzushio is stunning in the daytime. 

It's a sprawling little village, cut through constantly by little rivers. There are bridges connecting streets, and citizens in boats moving each other from once place to the next. The buildings are all within a uniform height, which is generally low, and their roofs are slated and colored in bright reds and blues and oranges. 

Lines for laundry seem to connect building to building, but the denizens of Uzushio use them for running from place to place as well. There are wind chimes as far as Sakura can see and hear; they combine with the gentle tones of the nearby sea and make music that Sakura wants to fall asleep to.

In the daylight, Uzushio is bright and colorful. There are a wealth of chattering barefoot children, running up and down the bridges or over the small waterways that disconnect pockets of land. There are adults speaking in boisterous excitable voices; shopkeepers laud the quality of their goods, and the smell of cooking food from stands makes Sakura's mouth water. 

There are seals on everything. The Uzushio spiral must serve some kind of fuinjutsu function, because it's on nearly every building in a way that suggests something like a mass barrier for the village. Konoha's barrier seal was only on the border surrounding the village, but each building in Uzushio appears to have some measure of individual protection. 

It makes Sakura wonder just how sudden the Kiri invasion was, for them to have caught such a heavily protected village off guard. 

There are eyes on her, and she knows it. Few people approach them, but every adult knows something is peculiar about the one eyed stranger in the Nobi hoari. Sakura doesn't look any of them in the eye. Instead, she follows behind Akira and Ryo, with Minako just a few paces ahead of her. She's survived the impossible. Some stares are the least of her concern.

* * *

The stranger called Tsubaki had the kind of fuinjutsu that Mito had been training her entire life to learn, to master, to create. 

She called it the Byakugō, the Strength of A Hundred Seal. But from the information Ryo had given Mito and the elders, it was clear that Tsubaki's seal easily could store the strength of at least a thousand. She had managed to seal another person's chakra into her body. That was dangerous fuinjutsu; it was one thing to store your own life force within yourself for later use. Another person's chakra could wreak havoc on one's own system. It was uniformly forbidden in Uzushio for young seal masters. 

But Mito is not young by Uzushio standards. She is the scion of the Uzumaki. Her family founded Uzushio generations ago; they were born there and they would die there. And because Mito's blood was as old and red as her hair, she had certain privileges. 

One of them, was tearing through the stranger's notes and figuring out how to apply them. 

Her notes are descriptive in some places and vague in others. She discusses kinds of katas to do when forming the seal, but supplies no specific recommendations. She suggests painting the seal on the forehead in black ink to help with focus, but sees no need to provide information on any supplementary ninjutsu that will help the seal form. 

Mito has a katon affinity, and lightning ninjutsu comes to her easily. According to Tsubaki's instructions, her fire affinity should go at the center with her lightning at a point beneath it so her strength is rooted in something supplementary. Then the other three directions should stand for the other three elements so that the seal is grounded. 

Which is all well and good considering it's the same seal theory Mito herself has been throwing around for the past year. 

It's not unheard of for those on Uzushio proper to more or less accidentally create the same fuinjutsu. Uzushio was an island whose strength was rooted in collaboration. They were small, but they were mighty because they worked together. Upon discovering her lightning affinity, Mito had sought out a mentor among the Nobi family, whose work with katon and katon supplemented fuinjutsu had given them their name in the first place. The Raiu had helped her through her first forays into raiton. Their expertise on lightning was what kept her from electrocuting herself to kingdom come when she had first tried to redirect lightning in a spar that happened too close to a stream.

But Tsubaki is a nameless shinobi from somewhere in Fire Country. Sure, it was possible for her to figure out how to store chakra on her forehead. But for someone who had apparently not been taught, her methodology was too precise. If Tsubaki was truly a girl who had been raised by orphans, orphans who themselves had no knowledge of fuinjutsu, the fact that she had created a fuinjutsu that an Uzumaki was developing meant that she was a genius of epic proportions. 

Or that she was lying. 

Even those who created terrifying new ninjutsu had to have a background of some kind. Every river comes from a stream. Someone had to have taught Tsubaki basic fuinjutsu before she created something so advanced on her own. But there were very few people in the world who knew fuinjutsu like Uzushio. It was their primary weapon and somehow, their best kept secret. 

But Tsubaki knew it intimately. 

Mito is cautious. She knows of the massive wars that rage outside of Uzushio's many barrier seals. She knows that once her father, Ashina dies or steps down, that she will be in charge of leading her people into the future. And while this Tsubaki is clever, she is still a threat. 

The Nobi were a good family to place her with. Minako was a strong woman. She had spent time out in Fire Country as a spy, and had brought back detailed reports on the war that raged between the Senju, the Uchiha, and their allies. If anyone would be able to tell how much of the truth this Tsubaki was saying, it would be Minako.

"My lady," comes a soft voice.

Mito turns to see Rin, one of her handmaidens enter her room with a deadly kind of silence. The Handmaidens of Uzushio would be the stuff of legends if Mito had anything to say about it. When the Uzumaki had first brought together the stormy and storied families of Uzushio, each family had pledged a daughter to the Uzumaki to protect those that the family had sired.

While the leader of Uzushio was partly chosen by blood and partially by election, the handmaidens still came from each of the six families, and were sworn to protect the ones that would lead their nation. Her father Ashina's handmaiden guard was made up of women Mito thought of as her aunties, and they were women who she knew could turn her into a fine paste when it came to combat situations. 

"Yes, Rin?" 

Rin was a black haired Fubuki whose purple eyes were some of the sharpest in her clan; she was a skilled archer and was of an age with Mito. She had been promised by the Fubuki as a handmaiden when she and Mito were both six. 

"The Storm Council meeting will be called to order soon," Rin says. "The foreigner will be in attendance. I am here to help you dress."

"Of course," Mito says. "Thank you."

There is little to help her do. Mito is always prepared. Rin makes sure her slim gold clips are in place on her bangs, sweeping them gently out of her eyes. She helps her into a dark green hoari with her family's crest in white on the back. Rin moves her face this way and that, with her deft right hand holding kohl and the other brandishing lip paint. 

"Rin," she groans. "That is not necessary."

"Please, my lady," Rin says. "You must look the part. Especially in front of foreigners."

She knows her handmaiden has a point, but she doesn't have to like it. When the make up is finished, Rin guides her out of her rooms. 

The Storm Council meets in a special room inside of the Uzumaki clan compound. The open aired room was built on a small pond, at the center of which a lantern was constantly kept burning. It was to symbolize the nature of Uzushio as a land where every element coexisted for the sake of survival, the same way the families of Uzushio did as well. 

Mito has been privy to these meetings since she could stand on her own. Rin guides her there, and the other four members of her handmaid guard slowly coalesce in her peripheral vision.

There's the blonde haired Tatsumaki Momo, who wore bells in her hair augmented with sound disruption genjutsu. Unarigoe Kikue, green haired and violet eyed; a master swordsman that could use seals on the hilt of her blade to give her weapon nature transformations. Hisame Usagi, a grey haired girl who could not hear but who could pulse her chakra into the earth, whose vibrations supplemented her disability. Raiu Utano, whose golden eyes and close cropped hair made her look every bit the wild eyed raiton user that her family bred.

Minako had not offered her a girl of the Nobi family yet; she complained that they were not ready. The guard that Mito already had was suitable enough, in her opinion. She could wait until Minako presented her with a suitable match. 

Her guard fades in and out of her sight, but they are only there for a short while. Rin is on her primary rotation today, but because there is a foreigner in their midst, her handmaiden's are on high alert. They will wait between the walls of the council meeting unless something should happen to come up. Mito doubts that Tsubaki will be stupid enough to try anything, but she appreciates the healthy paranoia her women are showing. 

She enters the meeting space with a slight bow to the current leaders of the clan. She bows more deeply for her father. Ashina's long white hair is pulled out of his eyes, with a single bun using most of his hair at the top, and the rest flowing down his shoulders. The burnished gold headdress of their clan sits well on his head; one day, it will sit on Mito's. 

"Chichi-ue," she says, bowing low to him. 

"Mito," he says, acknowledging her. 

She bows again to her mother, Marishi who wears the same three gold clips that Mito does, and says softly, "Haha-ue," before taking her seat to the right of her father. Rin sits just behind Mito, and Ashina's handmaiden guard fans out behind him. Her own guard hides in the walls. 

They sit in a great circle around the pool and the lantern that burns on the small island at the center. Above them, a warm ocean breeze blows. 

She is not the last to arrive; the clan heads of the founding clans of Uzushio are all assembled except for Nobi Minako. She is bringing her new ward. 

When they arrive, all eyes are on them. Mito can't help but appraise the stranger called Tsubaki. There is silence as they enter, and as Minako takes her place in the circle. Tsubaki has the good sense to mimic Mito and the other clan heirs by sitting just to the right of their clan heads. Ryo and Akira had escorted them there, but they are not important enough to stay so they back out respectfully the way they came. 

"I see things have gone well with you welcoming your new ward, Nobi-san," Ashina says, beginning the meeting. 

Minako inclines her head respectfully to him and gives him a light smile. 

"Tsubaki-san is of a similar mindset to my family," she replies. "I think she will do well with us."

"I am glad to hear it," Ashina says. 

The meeting progresses to other matters. Trade with Mist Country and other smaller islands; brief but vague discussions of whether or not conquest is an option for those weaker than they are. Mito knows it is peculiar, for Tsubaki to be privy to this information, but she understands why it's happening. 

It's a show of Minako's certainty in her decision. And the fact that Ashina has let Tsubaki stay is an indication of how much he trusts her family. 

And of how much she has to lose if she chose incorrectly. 

Mito watches Tsubaki through the meeting; she is expected to give full reports to her father about what she thinks is the best course of action when the meetings are over, but she is not yet of an age where she is allowed to speak freely. 

Tsubaki looks better than she had when Mito had first seen her, and placed her tanto at the girl's throat. She hasn't showered, but the bandages covering her face have been changed and she's in fresh clothes. She's wearing the purple hoari of the Nobi, with their swirling white and yellow flames perfectly contained in a single circle on the back. It was ironic, the family being a wildfire with such a tame sigil. 

She appears to be listening very intently, but there's a moment when her single green eye snaps to meet Mito's grey ones. Mito doesn't look away. She raises a fine red eyebrow at the intruder. Tsubaki smirks but her face shutters into professionalism when the Senju are mentioned. 

Ryo had mentioned in his interrogation report that Tsubaki's family had been allied with the Senju. She had been young, a battlefield baby, and the great family had lost her when her parents had died. It was uncommon in the early days of the war between the Senju and the Uchiha, but it happened more every day as the losses mounted upon themselves. 

She had grown up in the wild, pledging herself to no banners except to those she named her brothers. She fought to keep them alive. Now she had nothing, and she wanted peace. 

But mention of the Senju makes Tsubaki stiffen behind her new clan head. 

"The Senju are our cousins," says Raiu Mineta, the grizzly bearded clan head. "We descend from the same great line. It is our duty to fight alongside them in this war."

Hisame Hotaru shakes her head, having read the lips of those in the room. 

" _The Senju have not honored our shared blood for some time_ ," she insists in sign language. " _This war with the Uchiha, that they have dragged all of Fire Country into, is none of our business._ "

Ashina strokes his long beard. Mito watches Tsubaki tug at Minako's sleeve, and whisper something in her ear. 

"We could send them aid," suggests Tatsumaki Yui. "A shipment of small scale tags for them to protect themselves with. Children are fighting in this war of theirs. They deserve to see adulthood."

The suggestion sends up a small amount of chatter among the clan heads. They trade ideas back and forth; the show of good will would be a decent way to remind the Senju of their blood. Senju Butsuma had forgotten his cousins in Uzushio in favor of decimating the Uchiha clan. But he had fallen some weeks ago in the war. His firstborn son, Senju Hashirama was leading the clan now, with his younger brother Tobirama at his side. 

The clan heads trade ideas of what kinds of seals to send. Exploding tags, flash bangs, short scale transportation seals and the like; anything that bought a couple of extra moments in a fight would be useful. 

"What if instead of sending fuinjutsu," Minako says, her voice cutting through the din, "we taught it instead?"

That brings the room to silence. Sharing fuinjutsu is an Uzushio only custom. Minako knows this. 

Suddenly, everyone's eyes are on Tsubaki, the outsider. Not a thief, or at least not a proven one. Not yet at least. 

"If we take perhaps, the younger brother, Tobirama for a period of several weeks and taught him a fraction of what we know," Minako advises, voice like honey in the mouth of a viper, "they would have much more cause to call us blood. Teaching a man to farm is much wiser than giving him a bowl of rice."

Mito looks to her father; Ashina says nothing and leaves his clansmen to ridicule Minako. 

"Preposterous," Mineta huffs. 

"The Senju would never send their second born son away from the front lines," Hotaru agrees. 

Fubuki Nanami purses her lips and looks to Ashina. 

"Perhaps not," Nanami says, "but if, by chance they do, it would be an excellent opportunity to reconcile our families in more than one way."

The thought alone almost makes Mito's jaw drop. 

Marriage. She has always known that eventually a suitable match will be found for her, the same way she has always known that it will be a marriage of duty and not of love. She had hoped for Ryo or Akira; they were near her in age, and she saw both of them as good men. But Mito has favored women for as long as she can remember. 

The idea of marrying someone outside of the island is disquieting. She knows that she will do it if her father wills it, because it will be for the good of her people. But it still makes her stomach turn. 

She looks back to Tsubaki, who is leaning away from Minako's ear. She narrows her eyes; if anything comes of this marriage talk, it will be that woman's fault. 

"The elder brother might be better," Unarigoe Nobu says. "Mito is a firstborn daughter. A match for Tobirama could be made among the remaining clans."

The unthinkable is what's happening in front of her; Mito knows her father is considering it because he is letting the clan heads suss it out amongst themselves. If he did not think it was a suitable idea, he would have silenced them all from the start. 

She wants to scream. She's being married off without the slightest notice and without her consent. She always knew it would happen this way, but she didn't expect it to happen so soon. It had been foolish of her; she's eighteen. She's of age by Uzushio standards. 

"We will send a small shipment of supplies as a show of goodwill," her father says once he has raised his hand for silence, "and we will shortly thereafter send an invitation to Senju Tobirama. Minako, because this is your proposal and you have a good amount of field experience, you will be charged with drafting this invitation to the boy."

Minako dips her head respectfully and says, "Of course, Ashina-sama."

"Nanami, Yui, Mineta," her father says, "I will charge the three of you with deciding what seals should be sent to aid our cousins. I expect a report on your progress by the end of the week."

They all mutter their affirmatives. 

"If there is no other business," her father begins, "then this meeting is -,"

Mito doesn't know what possesses her to speak. But she does. 

"I have a request, chichi-ue," she says, "that I would like to make of Nobi-sama and her ward."

Her father raises an eyebrow at her; requests from one clan to another hardly need to occur in full view of the Storm Council. But Mito has just watched the next several decades of her life be hastily sketched out before her. She needs to assert a measure of control.

"By all means," Ashina replies. 

"Nobi Tsubaki-san," she says, placing her eyes squarely on the ward. "Your Byakugō seal is an incredible piece of fuinjutsu. It is very much like what we on Uzushio practice, but completely different in a wide variety of ways."

She looks over the assembled shinobi; it's clear that all of them have clocked the two black circles on Tsubaki's face. They were all made aware of Ryo's report; they all know what impossible thing this foreigner has managed to do on her own. 

"Here, on Uzushio," Mito continues, "like food, shelter, and all of our resources, fuinjutsu is something to be shared for the sake of our continued survival."

Everyone but Tsubaki knows exactly what Mito is doing. From the corner of her eye, Mito can see her mother tense. Mineta gives her an appraising glance; the other clan heads seem curious, but not even remotely surprised. 

"As you are now a ward of the Nobi clan, you are a member of Uzushio. It would be best if you took to our ways not only by wearing our clothes, but by trusting us enough to share your knowledge not only in the theoretical, but in the practical sense."

She is the firstborn daughter of the Uzumaki clan. She will not bow to this stranger. But she does incline her head a respectable amount, and is suddenly grateful for the make up on her pretty face. 

"Please teach me your Byakugō, Nobi Tsubaki-san."

There is a measure of silence in the room. Her father says nothing to stop her. Minako turns her head back to her charge, ready to intervene if she is to say anything even remotely inappropriate. It would be - bad of her to refuse, so they all know that she won't. Or at least that she shouldn't. 

She also shouldn't have shown up in the middle of the village. Tsubaki-san seemed to be full of strange and interesting surprises. 

Tsubaki nods politely to her new clan head as if to calm her; she knows that whatever she does will reflect on Minako. She is Uzushio now; she may not be of their blood, but she has taken one of their names. Mito knows what Tsubaki will say before she even says it, and she wonders if she hasn't just made a terrible mistake.

Tsubaki bares her teeth in what might be a grimace, but what could also be a smile. 

"It would be my pleasure, Mito-sama."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hc uzushio as an incredibly more colorful venice.
> 
> uzushio has sign language because i say so. usagi is literally my favorite new character because of it. i love her. i hope you love her too. the hisame are a family that is primarily made up of deaf or hoh people. because of this pretty large population on the island, nearly everyone on uzushio knows sign language; nobody wants to disrespect an important family by not knowing how to talk to them! this, is also gonna be where field sign comes from. but that all will be more thoroughly explained in the next chapter.
> 
> gee i wonder who's gonna fill that spot on mito's handmaiden guard. who could that possibly be????????


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> much love to amako for helping me draft this behemoth <3

Sakura knows that the alliance between the Senju and the Uzumaki was rekindled during the Warring States Period because of the sharing of seals, and she knows that this sharing eventually led to the marriage contract brokered for Uzumaki Mito and Senju Hashirama.

But she also knows that several thousand miles away, Senju Tobirama is anywhere between several weeks and several months away from murdering Uchiha Izuna and ruining Madara's sense of mercy beyond repair. She knows that she can do either one of two things; she can let Izuna die and hope for the best, or she can take Tobirama out of the picture for a little while and ensure that Izuna lives to temper his older brother's ferocity. 

If Izuna never died by Tobirama's hand, Madara would have no reason whatsoever to continue warring with the Senju. Black Zetsu would find a way to continue the fighting, but Sakura knew that keeping Izuna in the picture was her best bet. 

So she tugs on Minako's sleeve and quietly asks why the seals alone must be sent, and why their knowledge cannot be shared as well. Minako looks at her with a raised eyebrow, as if she has lost her mind. But she must have been thinking something along those lines, because she takes Sakura's proposition and voices it to the Storm Council. 

Senju Tobirama was a genius of international renown. He had created the Hiraishin on his own, but there was no limit to how powerful the technique would become if he had Uzushio hands guiding him. It would probably make him a lot more dangerous in battle, which would possibly lead to Izuna's death anyway. 

It's a risk she's willing to take at this point. When Tobirama gets to Uzushio, then she can badger him (or rather, listen in while someone else badgers him) about the exact state of the Senju in the war, whether or not they'll need reinforcements, etcetera. 

The shinobi of Uzushio were strong, and they would do anything for their blood. If Tobirama and Hashirama are smart about it, they won't really even have to ask for Uzushio's aid in the war. When she thinks about it, Sakura is well aware that she'll probably be one of those drafted to fight in the war. She makes a mental note to ensure that she gets assigned to the war party; there's lots for her to do on the mainland. 

When Uzumaki Mito asks her to teach her the Byakugō, Sakura must resist the urge to roll her eyes and say, 'I thought you'd never ask'. Really, she's become too much like her shishou. A little too harsh around the edges; they had been soft, loving women, hardened by war. There had been some strength in their softness, in how they still loved towards the end. 

Sakura didn't need to see the way Tsunade's fingers brushed against Terumi Mei's to know. Mei had not responded well to Tsunade's death; that had been all the information Sakura needed. The heartbreak on Mei's face as Sakura's shishou finally succumbed to the shinigami was an expression that Sakura would later become very familiar with. 

She gets a flash of Ino, smiling down at her. She had somehow managed to keep a compact with her, even through the worst of the fighting. The reflections could be used to confuse enemies, or to see around corners. 

She is crouching before Sakura just after shaving her head. 

"Well your forehead doesn't look any bigger," she says, a little smile on her face. "A miracle in these trying times, don't you think?"

Sakura peers at the close crop Ino has given her and hesitantly runs her hands over the peach fuzz skin of her head. She looks to her battlefield wife, then reaches out and ruffles Ino's hair. It's short, as short as it was when she had cut her own ponytail during the Chuunin Exams. 

"Insulting my skull won't make your nose look less like a snout, pig."

"Oh yeah?" Ino asks, raising an eyebrow. 

She presses in close, starts whuffling against Sakura's neck. She snorts, honest to god snorts right against her ear. And Sakura can't help the peal of laughter she lets out as her wife pushes her onto her back and presses kisses on her cheeks and nose and eyelids. 

And then, suddenly, she is back in this strange time, in this strange place. Flashbacks are ugly and inconvenient things. She can feel something like grief tugging low at her gut. Kurama is silent in her mind, unsure of how to handle the situation. 

She bares her teeth because it is the polite thing to do, and inclines her head to the Uzumaki princess. 

"It would be my pleasure, Mito-sama."

* * *

The meeting is called to a close, and Sakura dutifully follows Minako out of the Uzumaki clan compound. 

The leaders of the other clans of Uzushio give her curious glances; some of them nod at her, others only look at her until she meets and holds their gazes, and then they look away. The woman who did not speak, Hisame Hotaru folds her hands into the bell like sleeves of her kimono and nods politely at Sakura as they leave. 

Those hand signs of hers were familiar, but Sakura can't quite place where. She hadn't been able to decipher any of what the woman was saying with them because of her fluidity of movement, but there was something in the sign that Sakura recognized. It reminded her of the field sign that she had learned after she passed the Chuunin Exams the second time, but Konoha field sign was nowhere near as graceful as Uzushio sign seemed to be. 

Besides, every person in the room had been able to understand what Hotaru-sama had been saying. The language barrier suddenly seems very wide. 

"The Hisame are a family full of those who cannot hear," Minako says to her as they walk back out into the sunny afternoon. 

Sakura follows close behind her clan head, dogging her steps the way she used to dog Kakashi's and Tsunade's. 

"Because they are a founding family of Uzushio, everyone on the island knows passable sign as well," Minako looks at her, a wry smile on her face, "I will find you a tutor so that you do not embarrass me."

Sakura snorts and follows Minako over a bridge, and the waterway beneath it. 

"You have much to learn about Uzushio, very much indeed. But if you are going to use your expertise in Storm Council meetings, you will need to know who you are talking to."

"Of course, Minako-sama," Sakura says. 

Minako waves a hand at that, and gives a little huff. 

"Minako, please. I'm not old enough for that honorific," she says. "We are all family on Uzushio, in some way or another. You'd blend in more if you called me auntie instead of 'sama'." 

Sakura purses her lips at that, because it seems - peculiar. 

"If it doesn't bother you, Minako-sama," she says carefully, "I have your name but I am not yet one of your people."

"If it's all the same to you, Tsubaki," Minako interrupts, "you absolutely are."

Sakura wonders if maybe Tsunade's mother was a Nobi woman. Their attitudes are terribly similar. 

"Uzushio was born when the storm gods were locked in a great war with one another," Minako explains. "Hurricanes, hailstorms, lightning, wildfires; the storm gods had been raging against one another for eons, and they created families in their images who were masters of their powers to help fight in their wars as well."

The path to the Nobi clan compound is relatively short; she notices from a stone slab that announces it, that the Tatsumaki clan compound is closest to the Uzumaki. And as they go, she sees that the clan compounds are situated far away from each other, so that they almost surround the little village proper. The seven families protect Uzushio in more ways than one, it seems. 

"It was not until Yorokobi, the joy of the universe began to weep that the storm gods ceased their fighting for her sake. She did not like to see her cousins shed each others blood, and she did not like to see the human children they created suffering."

The Nobi compound is marked by a stone slab like the Tatsumaki's. Minako leads Sakura inside. 

The compound is spacious, and filled with tidy looking houses with bright red roofs. There are adults and children, all of them boisterous and excitable. None of them stop to look at Sakura, but she knows that they are watching her, every last one of them. Because she is at Minako's side and because she is wearing their sigil, they stare. They have a new family member to assess. 

"Yorokobi stopped the spirits fighting, but humans do not always listen to the will of the gods. The many families of Uzushio continued their squabbles, almost destroying the island the same way their patron gods had."

Minako leads her to what must be her own home, the main house. It is the largest, and the most ornately made. She takes her shoes off politely at the door, and follows Minako through the sprawling hallways. Wind chimes and their pretty music fills her ears, and plays lovingly with the story that Minako tells. 

"It was not until Yorokobi sent a single great storm to Uzushio that the families ceased their fighting. They had to unite or perish. They were not sure of how to protect themselves from the storm; some thought they should abandon the island, others suggested hiding underground. Then a girl from the maelstrom clan said that they should battle the storm itself."

Sakura's eyebrows raise into her hair; that's something Naruto would do. 

"Some thought her mad, but as the storm approached six members of the strongest clans of Uzushio joined her. They used their ninjutsu to beat back the storm, together. It was after this miracle, that Uzushio was properly founded."

Minako leads her down several corridors, and gives her a decent tour of the house. There are several rooms for Sakura to choose one, but Minako allows them to linger at the door to one of them and Sakura guesses that this will be hers. They walk through the house's library and dining room, through the small training grounds just behind the house. 

"The clans named themselves for the storm gods that created them, but the maelstrom clan could not decide on a name. It was not until the six clans together dubbed them the Uzumaki, for their leader's wild plan of beating back a hurricane, that they too settled on a name."

Sakura valiantly does not pinch the bridge of her nose. Of course. Of course Naruto's great-odd grandmother fought a hurricane and won. 

"The hurricane girl, Uzumaki Masayo and her clansmen were elected by the other six families to lead Uzushio once the fighting was over, because it was under her arm that the quarreling clans came together. But the founding families have since then reserved the right to elect a different family to rule the island should the Uzumaki fail."

Minako sits them down in a parlor like area, with soft cushions and low tables. She raps her knuckles against a wall, and a sliding door opens. A young man with close cropped hair enters. He doesn't spare Sakura a glance. He bows deeply to Minako before shutting the door again and leaving. 

"The founding families built their homes on the spots where their clan heads used their fuinjutsu to fight back the storm, so that in the same way they protected their land from the forces of nature, they could also protect their land from invaders."

The boy returns not too long after with a teapot and two cups. He sets the tea tray down on the table, then deftly pours two cups of tea. Minako sips at hers; Sakura lets hers warm her hands.

"The Tatsumaki are the tornado clan, known for their fūton jutsu. Their clan head is Tatsumaki Yui. The Nobi, our clan, are the wildfires, known for our katon. The Unarigoe are the hailstorm clan, who combine fūton and doton in their kekkei genkai nature transformation. Unarigoe Nobu leads them. The Hisame combine fūton and suiton, and are the ice storm clan, and they are led by Hisame Hotaru. The Fubuki are their close cousins, and use a similar combination as the snow storm clan. Their clan head is Fubuki Nanami. The Raiu are led by Raiu Mineta, and they are a family of raiton users." 

"And the Uzumaki?" Sakura asks, opening her mouth to speak for the first time in some time. 

Minako gives her a little grin. 

"Led by Uzumaki Ashina. His daughter, Mito-sama, is the one who found and escorted you to your prison when you first joined us."

Minako raises a single curious eyebrow, and the look in her eyes reminds Sakura painfully of Tsunade's, of Naruto's, hell, even of her own mother's when they first got wind of Sakura's crush on Ino. 

"Though I suppose you already knew that," Minako adds slyly. 

Sakura opens her mouth to deny it, to say that she has a wife, that she  _had_ a wife, and then Tenten afterwards. Wants to say that her heart is not open to that, that her interest in Mito is purely historical, asexual, aromantic. Her interest is there because Mito is the first jinchuuriki in history. She doesn't want to fuck the princess. She wants to make sure she lives to treat Kurama with kindness and respect. 

She finds that she can't say anything. Because all of it is too much of the truth, and the truth is dangerous. She's still reeling from the flashback she had of Ino earlier, and now she can just barely smell cleansing oil; Tenten's hands always smelled of it, towards the end. 

But it is easier to let Minako think that she has the hots for the princess; it makes sense. And she does not seem to begrudge her the false crush. Historically, there were regions that were not always kind to shinobi who preferred shinobi and kunoichi who preferred kunoichi. Fortunately, Uzushio does not seem to be one such place. 

"I don't fault you for it," Minako says, sipping her tea. "Mito-sama is a lovely young woman. And strong. If we did not have our allies in the Senju to worry over, she might have been married to someone on the island."

Sakura shrugs and sips at her own tea. It's spiced and sweet. Her stomach is accustomed to richer flavors and foods now, thanks to Ryo's meals. But the tea is not like anything she has tasted in years. There was no time for luxuries like this during war. There had barely been time for food. Those had been lean, hungry years, made of running and starvation.

"It would be best for the island if she were to wed one of the Senju," Sakura says lightly. "Family is important to Uzushio. The Senju are cousins of the Uzumaki. A marriage between the families would rectify the years of silence between them."

Minako huffs out a laugh at that and says, "You talk like a politician. Perhaps you'd be better suited to the Fubuki. They're a load of clever bastards, they are."

Sakura shakes her head, peering down into her smooth brown cup. 

"I'm happy here, Minako-sama," she says softly. Because she is. Minako reminds her of home in a strange way; she acts like Tsunade, and her hair color is reminiscent of her father's. She's grateful that Ryo suggested she become a part of the Nobi, and she's grateful that Minako took her. 

Then suddenly there are tears burning at the edge of her vision, and Sakura can't help but think of her father, of Kizashi and the way that he cooked and laughed and scribbled in the margins of his books. And how Mebuki would scold him for reading at the table and would needle Sakura about not shining her weapons at the table, and how Sakura and her father would share a glance while her mother and his wife slapped them over the back of the head. 

She misses her mother's hugs, and how she always smelled of roasted chestnuts. She misses her father's reading glasses, and how he used to bring her cookies when he picked her up from the academy. 

And she is sobbing before she can stop herself, holding her teacup too hard. And she feels stupid, because her parents died years and years ago, before the war was even at its worst. She had seen others die, had watched Ino die, and Obito and countless others. But her parents - 

She hadn't even been able to pretend to bury them. 

There is a hand on her wrist, and Sakura reacts on instinct. She rolls her wrist to break the hold, immediately raising her teacup to break against the head of whoever is grabbing her. There is another arm holding her raised one with a bruising grip, and Sakura can't see but she feels the panic rising in her throat. She hasn't had to fight for weeks, but now she can only think to defend and to run. 

"Stand down," comes a tender voice. "Let her go, Hikaru."

The boy from earlier, the dark haired boy is holding her arm.

"Yes, haha-ue."

He releases her. Sakura drops the teacup. It rolls on the floor, and bumps against her thigh. 

"You have seen much," Minako says, her voice soft and low, like she is soothing a crying child. "I know the eyes of those who have seen too much. You have such eyes, Tsubaki-chan."

Minako takes her wrist again, and Sakura lets her. Then the older woman is pulling her into a hug. Sakura's hands spasm; she doesn't know what to do with this affection. She hasn't been hugged in years. 

"You have lost so much, child," Minako says. "But you have survived. And there is no shame in living after those you love have been lost to you."

Minako places one hand on the back of her head, and her other hand rubs gentle circles onto Sakura's back. Hesitantly, she brings her own arms up to wrap around Minako. It has been so long. A mother's embrace doesn't change backwards or forwards in time; Minako hugs like Mebuki did. 

"You have not wept for them, I can see it in the way that you stand," Minako murmurs into her ear. "You are allowed to mourn them."

Sakura's fingers bunch up in Minako's tidy kimono, crumpling the ornate fabric. 

"Weep, child. Let yourself weep."

And with a great hacking sob, Sakura mourns her parents. 

* * *

Mito sends Kikue to summon Tsubaki, knowing that Ryo is likely to have spoken with his cousin about the new ward of the Nobi. Kikue takes her instructions and goes; she is an obedient, but silly girl. She is worse than Ryo when it comes to challenges; the entire Unarigoe family is prone to getting into competitions with one another over the silliest things. In living memory an elder of the clan decimated the whole family in a soba eating competition. 

She has Momo and Usagi help her dress. She dons a pale green gi, and they pull her hair back into a single tail at the top of her head. Usagi puts Mito's Uzumaki clips on her bangs while Momo tends to the senbon holster in Mito's sleeves. 

It has been three days since the newly minted Nobi Tsubaki told the Storm Council to teach the Senju fuinjutsu. Mito had wanted to give the woman time to adjust to life lived with the Nobi. Uzushio was a land of boisterous people, but the Nobi were known for their temperament. They were not called wildfire for nothing. 

Mito can see the way her father has heeded the advice of the council. She knows that regardless of whether or not Tobirama comes to learn on the island, she will still be offered to Hashirama as a wife. It means she will not be able to lead the Uzumaki as her father had, and her grandmother before him. She will marry into a family she does not know, and will move to a land she is unfamiliar with for the sake of her people. 

The match will be good for Uzushio. Fire Country is huge, and filled with resources that will bolster her people. Access to Fire Country's trade routes would bring exponential funds to the island. A marriage with the Senju could only help Uzushio. 

But Mito was raised to lead a nation of storms. And in a matter of months, she will be bartered for and sent away to ensure their continued survival in these trying times. 

And it's all Tsubaki's fault. 

"Be nice," Momo says to her, gently taking her arm. 

Mito blows upwards at her bangs. 

"I'm always nice."

Usagi gives a huge roll of her eyes, and tucks her hands into the sleeves of her kimono. Mito knows for a fact that there are a number of terrifying weapons in those sleeves, ones even more frightening than the senbon up her own. 

She keeps Momo and Usagi with her because Tsubaki is a Nobi now, but she is still a stranger. Mito can defend herself, but she is cautious. Tsubaki was raised in war; there was no telling how many of them she could take in a fight, or what she would do to win if it came down to it. 

With Usagi taking up the rear and Momo on her arm, Mito heads to the Sharing Grounds. Uzushio was quite literally built on cooperation, and it showed in the way their forbearers named everything on the island. 

The Sharing Grounds were a series of training grounds, but were named as such because the focus of training, they believed, should not be on winning or losing in a fight, but on what you teach and what you learn during combat. Mito has been visiting the Sharing Grounds since she could walk, and therefore could perform taijutsu. She learned katon under a Nobi mentor, and raiton under a Raiu there as well. She trains with her handmaiden guard here, and it's where her parents have taught her fuinjutsu. 

Kikue is already there with Tsubaki, and Hikaru, Minako's firstborn son. She hasn't named him her heir yet; she thinks he needs field experience, but the Uzumaki do not send children into battle. Hikaru is fourteen and resents it, but he knows that isolationism has protected Uzushio for generations. He will be sent out as a spy if he shows himself capable, and then he will have his taste of war. 

"Hikaru-san, Tsubaki-san," Mito says as she approaches. "I am glad to see you both."

"You look well, Mito-sama," Hikaru replies, offering her a short bow. 

Tsubaki follows him down, murmuring her own greeting. Mito wonders if Minako sent Hikaru because she had assumed Mito would have left her handmaidens behind for this. She wonders if Hikaru is guarding Mito from Tsubaki, or Tsubaki from Mito. 

There's little time to ask.

"I'd like to get to work immediately, Tsubaki-san," Mito says. 

Momo and Usagi leave her side, and Hikaru steps back to observe. Tsubaki is dressed in a similar costume, in Nobi purple with her sleeves rolled up. Her bandages have been traded for a functional black eyepatch. She cuts an imposing figure with her short hair and dark clothing. 

"We begin with focusing, Mito-sama," Tsubaki says. "Please sit."

Tsubaki offers Mito her hand. Mito peers down at it with one raised eyebrow, then takes it and allows Tsubaki to help her sit. 

"Close your eyes," Tsubaki says, sitting down in front of her and crossing her legs. Mito mimics her, and together they sit in lotus. 

"Feel the grass beneath you. The wind in your hair, on your neck. The sun on your face. All these things are fueled by nature chakra; it is the well from which all of our chakra comes, and the well to which it returns. Feel it. You are a small, but necessary part of it."

Mito shuts her eyes, and she lets herself feel the world. She is a sensor, as many of her blood are. She can feel Momo's inquisitive chakra, and Usagi's pool of quiet strength. She can feel Hikaru, who is apprehensive but curious about what exactly they are doing. Kikue is prickly, ever vigilant. 

She can feel Tsubaki. The chakra in her body is resilient; strong from constant use and abuse. It is hard, but there is something oddly tentative about it. The chakra focused in the seal on her forehead is abrasive, like acid or fire or bolt upon bolt of lightning. Mito wonders about the man who gave Tsubaki that chakra; Ryo had not been able to tell them because he had not asked. It had been one of her brothers, that much they could guess, but having another person's life in your body was difficult enough without the added drain of them being dead. 

Mito did not think she would ever ask Tsubaki his name. She doubted anyone on Uzushio, an island where family meant the world, would ever have the gall to ask either.

"Now focus on where your body meets the earth, and go inward. Feel your chakra as it flows through you, starting from your legs and traveling upwards. Focus on the well at your core. Your reserves. Feel the strength of it. It is endless, and it connects you to the world around you."

Her own reserves are massive, a gift of her Uzumaki blood. Her foremother, Uzumaki Masayo had tamed hurricanes on her own even after the founding. Had dug her fists into the sea that battered Uzushio and demanded it to quiet itself. 

"Now feel your chakra as it travels your body. It has routes, like your blood does, like your breath does. It moves freely through you even when you are not using ninjutsu, to and from your tenketsu. Feel its pulse, for it has one, and it touches every part of you."

Mito can feel her chakra sing. It flows quickly, all of it desperate to move, curious and playful and wanting to be used. It responds to her focus, like a puppy.

"Now feel where your tenketsu are the most ready. It may be along your hands or your arms, perhaps even on your feet. Don't focus anywhere, let your body guide you. Do you have a place?"

The space between her collarbones sings to her. Mito is not aware of any ninjutsu that occur from the collarbones as a conduit. The hands and the mouth were the easiest to focus, and the feet came after them. But the tenketsu at divot between her collarbones suddenly feels empty and curious, and wants to be filled.

"Yes."

"Good. Focus. Memorize the way that place feels. Is it light, or heavy, empty or full feeling? Is it comfortable? Is it stiff? Is it curious, excited? Concerned? Frightened. Become intimate with this part of your body. It will be your site of storage."

Mito can honestly say she's never spent this much time focusing on a single body part. Tsubaki guides her through a ten minute meditation that explores that divot, and how her other tenketsu radiate out from it, how her chakra interacts with it. By the time the mediation is over, Mito knows that space the same way she knows her palms. 

"Okay, Mito-sama."

She opens her eyes slowly, and the sun is bright in them. Tsubaki is standing before her, and is offering a hand to help her stand. Mito doesn't hesitate this time. She lets Tsubaki help her rise. 

"Before we start storing chakra, you need to know how that place feels when moving as well as in stillness. We'll start with meditation and slow katas every day, and then the katas will get faster. Eventually, we will spar while you focus on that point. Later, we will focus on crafting the fuinjutsu, once you have mastered your site."

Mito nods, because it makes sense, even if it means it will take her weeks to learn. Tsubaki is a fountain of knowledge, and Mito is an Uzumaki; she is always hungry to learn. 

"As you say, Tsubaki-san."

Tsubaki steps away from her and settle into a wide horse stance. Mito immediately mimics, and begins to mirror the other woman as she goes. 

They're katas for a suiton style of fighting, that she can already tell. The movements are long and deliberately elegant, with thrusts and strikes of the palms and wide arcing kicks. Tsubaki knows the forms well, but she moves only a handful of seconds before Mito so that she is easily followed. 

They follow the same form three times and then Tsubaki steps out of it. Mito begins to stand up straight, but the pink haired woman shakes her head. 

"I'll watch you now, Mito-sama, to be sure you understand it."

Mito nods and falls back into the form she has been recently taught. 

She follows her recollection of Tsubaki's movements, and the easy way one strike comes after the other. She executes each movement perfectly, dragging one foot across the earth to lean her weight on before her front leg comes up in a kick. 

"You're not focusing Mito-sama."

Mito presses her lips together. Years of training have taught her that talking back to any master is a good way to get landed on your ass. But she's been performing the katas effortlessly, even though they're the opposite of what she's used to. Katon and raiton demanded swift feet, sharp jabs, and punches. Suiton could be sped up, but it demanded time. 

"Your storage site, Mito-sama. You're thinking of the kata, and not of your body."

Her gaze flickers to Tsubaki's, but the woman is watching the way Mito's arms move and how she develops a strike from her hip and outwards. Mito draws her awareness into herself again, and suddenly she can feel the way her chakra is pulsing all over again. It writhes against itself and the point between her collarbones is humming with energy that wants to be formed and used. 

"That's it," Tsubaki says. "Very good."

Mito keeps moving, and she feels the way her chakra slides through her tenketsu, around her body and skitters back to her reserves before jumping back out again. She feels the divot on her chest, and the minuscule amount of sweat that begins to accumulate there. The kata is a means to an end; Mito is beginning to understand the way a single tenketsu in her body behaves when she is moving. 

The Uzumaki are talented sensors, and they are pools of chakra. Fuinjutsu demands precise chakra control when seals are made and activated. But perception of the chakra within the body at a single point is a scope so small, Mito isn't sure of anyone whose taken a crack at it yet. 

And here is Tsubaki, who has not only managed to do it with her own chakra, but with _someone else's_. 

"Lower, Mito-sama. You're riding too high."

Her eyes flicker to Tsubaki, who watches her with a furrow on her brows. 

"Plant your feet," she says. 

"They are planted, Tsubaki-san," Mito replies. 

She can hear a voice that sounds like Momo's groan, "Here we go," but Mito ignores it for the sake of staring her new sensei down. 

"Then why are your hips so high?" Tsubaki asks, forgoing formality in favor of chastising the heir of Uzushio. 

Mito narrows her eyes. She has a long fuse and a fearsome temper, and it wouldn't look good to blow up on a recent addition to the island. 

"If my form is incorrect, Tsubaki-san, by all means, please fix it."

Tsubaki hm's at that, then takes a slow circuit around Mito. She makes sure she's always in Mito's line of sight before she settles directly behind her. Mito can't help but tense; isolationism or not, no shinobi liked it when someone was in their blind spot. But Tsubaki firmly plants her hands on Mito's hip, with a second at the base of her back and presses her downwards. 

Mito's ears are suddenly very warm. 

She hadn't noticed that she had been sticking her pelvis outwards as she moved, that she wasn't moving towards the earth and was instead floating up. A stance too loose would get her knocked on her ass. 

"There it is," Tsubaki says, voice perilously close to Mito's ear. 

Then as soon as she had come into her space, her new teacher retreats. 

"Again."

Mito takes a breath, shoves away her embarrassment, her curiosity, and the feeling of Tsubaki's hands on her hips, and starts moving. 

* * *

 "She shouldn't know those katas," Kikue says, after Tsubaki and Hikaru have left the Sharing Grounds. 

She had promised Mito her time whenever she was available. It had been a generous promise; Minako was likely filling Tsubaki's head with Uzushio history and customs. She had to make friends with her new family as well.

Mito is sweating; Tsubaki had kept her running through suiton and fūton katas for upwards of three hours. She hadn't laid her hands on Mito a second time, and Mito was incredibly surprised with the dismay that came at the fact. 

It wasn't as if she had never been touched by a woman before, especially not in the context of training. But Tsubaki was a stranger. Perhaps that was her appeal. Mito nods brusquely and settles on that explanation. Everyone is enamored by someone new and different. It was a subtle, childish curiosity that would fade with exposure.

"Why not?" Mito asks, brows furrowed. 

"They're ours."

Mito looks from Kikue to Momo, and to Usagi. She knows her handmaidens would not lie to her, but they look - hesitant about the conclusion they have drawn. 

"But?" Mito asks, waiting for an answer. 

"It's a - a strange mixture of our techniques," Momo interjects, beginning to explain. "They aren't Hisame katas or Raiu katas, or anything specifically from any of our families. It's all of them, condensed."

Mito turns her head and looks at Tsubaki's fading back, and the Nobi haori she donned before leaving. Hikaru is looking up at her, chattering at her about something. 

Usagi claps once, and all of their eyes turn to her. 

" _Ashina-sama's guard has been discussing a streamlined fighting style for the handmaidens. A style that would combine the styles of the six families into one specialization. We've been helping them create it. That's how we recognized it."_

The Handmaidens of Uzushio had been using their individual fighting styles to guard the heir of the island since the handmaidens were founded. They had relied on their different fighting styles as a deterrent; you couldn't fight any two handmaidens the same way, because you couldn't redirect lightning the same way you dodged a wave. A combined fighting style would lend an air of professionalism to the Handmaidens whenever Uzushio ended its generations long isolationist approach to the world stage.

If it was supplemented with the individual styles, the Handmaidens of Uzushio would be an unstoppable protective force. So how in the world did Tsubaki know these  _new_ techniques?

Mito rolls up her sleeves, and speaks as she signs in response. 

_"How long has my father's guard been developing this technique?"_

_"Couple of months,"_ Usagi responds,  _"not even a year. They're still in development. Nothing has been finalized._ "

Mito purses her lips. There were apprehensions that Tsubaki might have been a spy, but the seals on her arms were active during Ryo's interrogation. They had monitored her heartbeat, and her breath as she spoke. Nothing she had said indicated that she was lying. 

The way she behaved, she really did seem like she had never been to Uzushio before. But here she was, walking around with a wildly advanced seal on her forehead, teaching Mito katas that she had no way of knowing, because they're still in development. 

" _The eye of hers, the one that bleeds,"_ Mito signs, " _is it possible that it's a doujutsu of some sort?"_

Kikue looks at Momo, and both of them shake their heads. 

" _Tell Minako to pay special attention her ward's eye,"_ she instructs.  _"And to be careful of what she teaches her."_

The Sharingan, from what little they knew of it, could predict movements as a person was making them, but it could not see the future. A kekkei genkai that allowed someone to peer into someone's mind - that was dangerous. Mito wasn't sure if she believed it was possible, but she would not be under cautious and risk the lives of her people for the sake of a stranger. 

Tsubaki may have recently become a Nobi, but she was still a foreigner. 

 _"I will meet with her three times a week,"_ Mito signs.  _"You'll join me, and you'll rotate out so each of you can assess what she may or may not know."_

Her guard nods as one. 

"It will serve us to be cautious," Momo says. "If she is a spy, it will reflect poorly on Minako-sama."

It would be a blow to her reputation, but Minako was a strong woman who had dedicated her life in the field to protecting Uzushio, and ferrying back information. It would be a blow, but it would be one she could recover from in time. If she chose an heir soon, or a woman for Mito's guard, it would do good things for her should her new ward be a danger to them all.

"And if she is not a spy?" Kikue asks. 

Mito looks over the soft clearing of the Sharing Grounds, the mix of sand and grass beneath her feet. A breeze slips through the air, toying with her hair, cooling her.

"If she is not a spy, then she is an asset," Mito replies. 

Momo snorts at that, but Kikue looks severe. Usagi purses her lips. It is an old phrase, one all of them learned when they first began combat training. When they learned to put Uzushio first, because protecting the Land of Whirlpools meant protecting all those in it. 

"And if she is not an asset, she is dead."

* * *

Zetsu feels space and time warp around itself, but knows that he is not the one to do it. He turns his face south, towards the dimensional displacement. He narrows his eyes. 

How peculiar. Kaa-san would not like it. 

He drags a white body from the looming wooden vessel and sends it south. It will travel through the earth and find the disruption. Kaa-san has already been waiting for many years, and if this new anomaly is something that can be used to ensure her return, Zetsu will be sure not to waste a resource. 

And if not, he is interested to see who managed to complete such complicated ninjutsu. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if the purple seal on mito's forehead isn't a byakugō, then what is it??? you will all find out soon enough, if you are patient with me!
> 
> yorokobi is not actually a goddess of anything; i made her up. she's based heavily on the japanese shinto goddess uzume, but because there are so many things (like ninjutsu) named after shinto gods and goddesses, i wanted to keep away from that to keep myself and everyone else from getting confused!
> 
> y'know the handmaiden's fist that sakura was talking about earlier? that's a technique that's literally in development in uzushio right now. guess who inadvertently fucked up the past!!! OUR GIRL 
> 
> comments are food for starving artists xx


	6. Chapter 6

A week later, Minako and a small guard leave with the small fuinjutsu collection amassed for the Senju. Sakura isn't allowed to know exactly which seals go into the package because she's not quite important enough to, but Minako had asked her once or twice exactly what nature transformations were common in Fire Country, if she could remember them at all. Sakura's combat experience, Minako reasoned, was more recent than her own. 

Sakura advised flash bombs to obscure the Sharingan eye, and suiton to combat Uchiha katon. She advised packages of honing oil and whetstones if there were any to be spared; this was still a time of mass swordsmanship and the Senju would appreciate someone offering to help their blades. It ends up adding to the goodwill package; the smiths have to work extra hard to create thirty Uzushio blades on Minako's suggestion to Ashina. 

Minako and her three man cell leave early in the morning. She leaves her cousin Kaori to watch over the clan, and to act in her stead should she not return from Fire Country. There is still a war going on outside, and the contingent leaving Uzushio is well aware that they might not return if they are intercepted on their journey. 

As Sakura stands at the docks of the village, she can't help the tight feeling in her chest that comes at seeing the shinobi gather in their vessel to depart. There are soft voices all around as people say goodbye to each other; Minako presses her forehead against Hikaru's, one hand coming up gently to cradle the back of his head in an Uzushio goodbye. 

Sakura knows handful of things for sure, and one of them is that Nobi Minako did not live to make a significant impact on the founding of Konohagakure. All that remained of Uzushio founding history by the time Sakura was born was of Uzumaki Ashina and Uzumaki Mito. Everyone else was dust. 

She doesn't know if she's sending her new clan head into danger. She's playing fast and loose with recorded history, and for the first time, she is well aware of the fact that she probably holds the future of Uzushio in her hands. She could prevent the genocide. She could prevent Uzumaki Kushina from being an orphan; she could prevent the scattering of immigrants, could stop Nagato's family ending up in Ame, or Karin's mother ending up a vessel for healing. 

If she was careful, she could save Uzushio. 

Which is peculiar, because she came back in time to save everyone in the first place. But now that she is among these people, learning their ways, eating their food, and calling them family - now it means more. It means something different to save their lives. 

Sakura came back in time not because she wanted to, but because she was their best bet. She was a good strategist; she knew how to make plans, how to watch them come into fruition. She's already made changes by encouraging Uzushio to reach out to their cousins in Fire Country. She had likely sped up the marriage between Uzumaki Mito and Senju Hashirama. 

Their wedding had happened after most of the fighting was over, once Konohagakure and Uzushiogakure were properly founded. Sakura didn't know what exactly would change if she sped that up; would adding another ally to the Senju end the fighting with the Uchiha sooner? Or would it force Black Zetsu to start meddling more insistently, possibly even using the Kyuubi trump card early?

There was no way of knowing until the contingent returned with news of Fire Country and of the war. And that much made Sakura wilt. She didn't like waiting. In the world of her origin, hesitation was as good as death. Especially with the rabbit goddess an her army of white demons vying for the life that ran in the veins of those who remained. 

But when Minako opens her arms to her and says, "Here, child," Sakura lets herself be guided into the Uzushio goodbye, pressing her Byakugō onto Minako's clear forehead. Her clan head already smelled of the sea, and her dark pink hair is soft against Sakura's forehead. 

She ought to be ashamed of herself, for growing so attached so quickly. But Minako looks like Kizashi and acts like Tsunade; there is too much here for Sakura not to love, but she can't hate herself for it. She has had so little comfort in the last handful of hard years. And Minako opened her home to her, offered her genuine kindness untainted by anything other than goodwill. 

The resolve settles into her stomach like a stone. She has thousands of lives to save, lives from her own time. But there are many here that need her help. 

And besides, Sakura does not want to see her clan head die. 

* * *

Tsubaki is an enigma. 

It's irritating.

Mito can't get anything out of her. The woman is impassive. She takes her duties teaching Mito her Byakugō seal seriously, but she doesn't seem interested in talking overmuch about herself. 

When she arrives at the Sharing Grounds, she's often with Hikaru. They talk easily, sharing taunts and insults in kind; it's obvious the two of them get along very well. But as soon as Tsubaki approaches Mito, a cool veneer of professionalism overtakes her. 

It isn't something Mito is used to. 

On Uzushio, she is important. She is the heir of the Uzumaki, the next person to lead their people into the future. But they are still family; everyone on Uzushio is a cousin in some way or another. The seven clans had intermarried, and so had smaller families. They all descended from different storm gods, but they had all become one for the sake of protecting their island and each other. They were a family. 

Tsubaki still behaved as if she was a stranger. 

Mito knows that it makes sense; Tsubaki was a war baby, and a lost one at that. She probably wasn't very keen on replacing those she had lost with new strangers. But she had taken the Nobi name, and she was wearing the Nobi colors and sigil. If she never acted like family, Uzushio would spit her out instead of embracing her. 

Which made everything all the more difficult, because she  _was_ acting like family. 

She and Hikaru had lively conversations, that much Mito could see. Whenever Mito went out into the town square, there were moments when she could see a head of shaved pink hair alongside a loudmouthed Unarigoe; it was obvious that Tsubaki and Ryo had become fast friends once he was no longer in charge of interrogating her. And making friends with one Unarigoe was pretty much the same as making friends with all the Unarigoe. 

But Tsubaki was still distant with Mito. 

"You did put a sword to her throat," Momo says, stretching her arms above her head one day after Tsubaki has left with Hikaru. 

"It's not the best way to start a friendship," Kikue agrees. 

"Or it's the  _best_ way to start one," Rin says, waggling her eyebrows. 

Mito throws her sandal at her handmaiden's face. Rin dodges with a laugh. 

Her brief, stuttering attraction to Tsubaki hadn't faded into nothing as much as it had become confused with the woman's lack of interest in her. She wasn't warm, but she wasn't cold either. Mostly, she was indifferent. 

Mito, despite her status, was an affectionate person. All the Uzumaki were. So it was - peculiar to have someone so indifferent to her. People on Uzushio ran hot or cold; you loved or you hated, and the in between was foreign territory. 

Then again, so was Tsubaki. 

They're just finishing a training session, this time, one filled with doton and katon style katas so that her seal would be balanced. Lightning would come last, then a training session where all nature transformation katas were practiced. Maybe a handful of days after that, Mito would be ready to ink the seal onto her skin and start focusing her chakra within it instead of around it. 

"Tsubaki-san," Utano says, the yellow eyed handmaiden says, approaching as Tsubaki prepares herself to go. "Are you very busy for the rest of the day?"

Tsubaki looks to Hikaru, who shrugs his shoulders. 

"Not particularly, Raiu-san," Tsubaki replies. "Do you have a request of me?"

Mito sucks quietly at her teeth; such formal speech. Was Tsubaki not assimilating well, or was she more comfortable with her adopted clan and with Ryo? Mito's handmaidens were not the heirs of their respective clans, but they were still her personal guard. Perhaps Tsubaki was only being respectful?

"I do, Tsubaki-san, I do," Utano says, bouncing lightly on her heels. "How'd you like a spar?"

They'd been planning this for days, running over in their minds who ought to have the fight with Tsubaki to see how much she knew about the Handmaiden's method of fighting. From what they gathered from Ryo, Tsubaki had a doton affinity. Utano's lightning would be strong against it. They doubted that Tsubaki wouldn't risk using her doton against someone so obviously from the Raiu clan, and that would give them a chance to see her taijutsu in action. 

Their taijutsu, to be more specific. 

Tsubaki purses her lips and looks at Hikaru a second time. The boy looks up at the sky; the sun hasn't reached its highest peak, so it's not yet midday. 

"Asuka-san won't mind," the boy says. 

Mito doesn't lift an eyebrow, not even once. Hisame Asuka was an older woman, much older than Mito's father. She had been born deaf, and was one of the teachers at the small school where all children went to learn maths, sciences, how to read, and how to write. Sign language was a necessity in Uzushio, when a founding clan was full of people that did not use their ears to hear. 

It was good then, that Tsubaki was getting sign language lessons. Mito has a moment to imagine Tsubaki sitting in one of the school's seats for children, much too small for her grown woman's body, and does her best not to laugh. 

"Then I'd be honored, Raiu-san."

"Please, Tsubaki-san," Utano says, grinning broadly. "Utano is just fine."

Mito and her handmaidens step away from the two young women preparing to fight, and Hikaru comes to stand alongside Momo. The entirety of Mito's handmaiden guard is here today, out in full force. Usagi keeps her hands hidden in her wide sleeves; Rin is to Mito's right, and Kikue to her left. Kikue elbows Mito in the side, and jerks her head to where Hikaru stands beside Momo. 

"Think Hikaru would make a good Nobi handmaiden?" she asks. 

Mito scoffs and elbows her friend back. Minako will pick a handmaiden from her family in due time; hopefully before the Uzumaki and Senju allied themselves with one another again. 

Kikue neatly dodges Mito's elbow, and walks forward towards where Tsubaki and Utano are standing, prepared to fight. Kikue picks up a small pebble from the ground beneath their feet. She tosses it up and down a couple of times, catching it in her hand. 

"Until someone calls yield," she says, looking from her fellow handmaiden to the outsider-turned-ally. "Ready?"

Utano nods; Tsubaki nods as well. 

Kikue throws the pebble in the air. When it hits the ground, the kunoichi fly at each other. 

Utano is a Raiu, and she's fast as lightning. She gets in close, drawing one of the twin trench knives that are holstered at her hips. Tsubaki goes in to meet her, not daunted by the Raiu's speed. 

Utano brings down her knife, and the air takes on a staticky ozone feeling. Her chakra blades were vicious in battle, able to take her lightning and channel it into her attacks. Tsubaki quirks a brow, and with a number of seals that are too fast to be watched, she slams her hands into the earth for a doton. 

She draws up a wall that curves above her body and down behind her. Utano's blade gets stuck in it, lightning ineffective against earth. She leaves the weapon, and runs on the hard wall that arches away from Tsubaki. 

Mito has a moment to wonder how well Minako armed her new ward when Tsubaki releases a volley of shuriken as Utano leaps off the curved wall, using her legs to lead into an attack. The handmaiden gets a couple of blades in her thighs for her trouble, but Tsubaki gets a kick in the face. 

The woman staggers back, and Mito can't help but purse her lips. That doesn't seem right. Tsubaki was a war baby, forged in battle. She was a survivor. Anyone could have seen that attack coming. It was almost like - 

"She let that happen," Rin murmurs. 

Kikue nods in agreement. Mito has to wonder why. 

Tsubaki lets the kick connect, and it lands her on her back, a handful of feet away from her earthen shield. Utano leaps over the wall, gabbing her trench knife on the way. Tsubaki rears up from her back onto her feet, tugging a kunai from a holster on her hip and engaging. 

Utano is an incredible swordsman, but Tsubaki is somehow - somehow better. She only uses a kunai, which shortens her range significantly, but she meets Utano blow for blow, parry for parry. At one point, she binds Utano's trench knife and flicks it out of her hands, only for Utano to draw her second one and come down hard from the left with it. 

The blow is aimed for the soft meat at the juncture of Tsubaki's neck and shoulder. Utano will pull the blade before it gets too close; it's a killing blow, which means she wins the spar. 

Before Mito can even recognize what's happening, Utano's blow is shoved out of her hand. It arcs high in the air and clatters away from her. Utano is shocked herself now that she's been disarmed of her favorite weapons, and Tsubaki takes full advantage of her surprise. 

She presses in with taijutsu that Mito recognizes because it's taijutsu that she's seen Momo perform. It's a Tatsumaki staple, an elegant wide swooping style. Tsubaki's legs are effective weapons; they shove Utano back as Tsubaki gains ground. 

"What did she - ?" 

Mito narrows her eyes, focusing on the way Tsubaki's strange chakra feels. The corrosive, awful feeling energy that's focused on her forehead stays on her alone. But the pool of immeasurable strength, amassed from her own body and strengthened with time is churning through her body and pressing itself  _outward._

Mito opens her eyes, and watches as Tsubaki lands a fist on Utano's cheek that sends the girl back ten feet. 

"She ejected chakra from the tenketsu on her throat," Mito murmurs, answering Kikue's awed question. 

That took good control. It's not a surprise; the seal on Tsubaki's forehead spoke of a perfect understanding of one's body. But opening the tenketsu was difficult without a guiding force; that was why ninjutsu existed. Because raw chakra had no idea how to behave without someone guiding it. 

Tsubaki lets hers out in sharp, controlled bursts that ward off Utano's attempts at returning her taijutsu combinations. 

Kikue has a sharp intake of breath; Utano throws out a handful of makishibi spikes. Tsubaki doesn't even seem remotely deterred. She leaps into the air, and comes down at Utano with an axe kick. Utano doesn't move, she lifts her arms and defends. 

Utano narrows her eyes, and with a burst of chakra she activates the seals written into her arm guards. Lightning chakra written into the arrays bursts forward. The lightning is light; it's not enough to give Tsubaki severe burns. More than anything, it's meant to shock her into rebounding from her kick and giving Utano some space. 

Tsubaki doesn't move. She doesn't even look remotely effected. She bears down hard, forcing Utano's block down and follows up with a burst of chakra from her descending leg. The force of it knocks Utano down to her knees. 

The foreigner pulls a kunai from her holster and holds it just beneath Utano's chin. 

"Do you yield?" 

Utano's throat bobs high, perilously close to the blade. Usagi is the fastest of the handmaidens, just after Utano. If anyone should need to get Tsubaki away from her, Usagi should be able to do it. Mito holds her breath, and she knows Hikaru must be doing so as well; it won't do, if Tsubaki goes too far in a spar, especially while her clan head is away. 

Utano gives a grin and says, "I yield."

With one sharp motion, Tsubaki discards her kunai into the ground, and offers the same hand to Utano to help her stand. Utano doesn't bother even looking at the arm that's offered to her. She takes it, and Tsubaki gets her to her feet. 

"Good match, Tsubaki-chan," Utano says, clapping her opponent on the arm. 

Tsubaki grins herself, nodding in acknowledgement. 

"You're not so bad yourself, Utano-chan," she replies. "Those arm guards had me for a second."

Utano scoffs. 

"Yeah, you would say that," the girl needles. "You take a kick in the face but a little shock upsets you."

Tsubaki shrugs, lifting one hand to gently press against the swollen skin on her cheek where the kick connected. 

"Those trench knives of yours," she says, "they channel your lightning chakra?" 

Utano nods, jogging over to pick up the blades where she had been disarmed. As she goes, Mito's eyes narrow at the place where Tsubaki's kunai has dug into the earth. It's been buried to the hilt.

"The force of that throw is impressive," Rin murmurs. "If that's how she throws when she's relaxed…"

It spoke to how she could throw in a real battle scenario. 

"You know what else is impressive?" Momo asks, voice deceptively light. "How well she fights like my clan."

Mito nods. That display was more than enough. And the way Tsubaki gets to her knees to check over the light shuriken wounds she inflicted during the spar. Her hands are gentle. 

It almost makes Mito want to believe that the way she can mimic Tatsumaki taijutsu, the way her fighting style is a strange amalgamation of the styles that the seven clans of Uzushio call their own. 

Almost. 

"Hikaru-kun," Mito says, staying back as Utano tries to convince Tsubaki that the wounds are nothing. "Your mother requested that you watch Tsubaki, yes?"

The boy nods curtly. If he had not been asked to watch her, he wouldn't be escorting her still around the village. Tsubaki was still on a trial period, regardless of her induction as a ward of the Nobi.

"What have you noticed about her covered eye?"

Hikaru shakes his head, then waves kindly at Tsubaki when she looks over and nods at them. 

"Covered at all times," he replies. "She doesn't complain vocally about having pain in it, but whenever she is stressed, it seems to trouble her more. She scratches at it in her sleep."

Stress. War trauma. From what he describes, it was likely a war injury, easily aggravated. Not a doujutsu, then. Mito tries not to let herself feel a measure of relief.

"It doesn't explain how she knows our ways," Mito murmurs. 

Momo folds her arms across her chest and says, "Wanderers taught her how to fight. It's possible one of our spies in Fire Country…"

Maybe. Perhaps. Uzushio shinobi had soft spots for children, it was one of their few weaknesses. Teaching a handful of terrified children how to defend themselves with taijutsu wasn't out of the realm of possibility. It wasn't like the techniques were forbidden, they were just distinctive. 

It didn't explain the fuinjutsu on Tsubaki's forehead, regardless of how she tried to explain her own ingenuity. The Byakugō was deceptively simple, Mito knew that much from learning how to use it herself. Once the foundation was laid, storing the chakra was the simplest part. But the theory, the overlapping nature transformations, the focus required; all of those were far advanced for someone outside of Uzushio. 

So was the transportation seal that supposedly sent Tsubaki to Uzushio. 

"Maybe," Mito replies. 

But Tsubaki and Utano are returning from their chat. They look like fast friends, lightly jostling each other at the shoulder as they return. Mito wonders if that what it takes to get close to Tsubaki, if shed blood is the sacrifice she requires for her friendship. 

"Maybe," Rin murmurs. 

Maybe isn't enough. She's still suspicious. She doesn't distrust Tsubaki, but she isn't about to put her life in the woman's hands. Mito doesn't like grey areas, but with a wild card like Tsubaki, she supposes she might have to get used to them. 

* * *

The troupe of shinobi in battle armor stop five meters away from the primary camp. Tobirama feels the influx of foreign chakra, and he is the first on the scene. The sentries have their hands on their swords, but have yet to draw them. When Tobirama arrives, they go to flank him. 

"What is your business here?" he calls, eyes narrowed. 

There are four of them, three men and one woman. The woman stands up front, with dark pink hair pulled back behind her head in a single bun, two tama kanzashi decorating it. Two of the men flank a small wagon, while the third man stands just a step behind the woman. 

"Do you not recognize your cousins, Senju-sama?" the woman asks. 

Her hands are by her sides, easy. There is a nagitana at her back, sheathed. She is dressed in blacks, with grey armor plating on her chest and down her knees. There's a bright red spiral on one sleeve, and three white flames in a slim golden circle on the other.

Tobirama narrows his eyes at the sigils, at the bright chakra signatures of each shinobi in front of him. Their chakra reserves are massive, like small stars condensed into human bodies. 

There were few shinobi on the planet with chakra reserves like that. He was one of them, and so was his brother. But that blood came from an old common ancestor; one that lived in Uzushio. 

The woman smiles at him in an easy way as he recognizes her and her men. 

"So you do know us," she says. 

She gestures back towards the wagon; he notices that her hands are gloved. 

"We come bearing gifts for the war effort," the woman says. "Fuinjutsu of Uzushio, to mend the silence between our families."

Tobirama arches a brow. That certainly was interesting. Uzushio was an isolationist country. Despite their distant familial relation, there had been little conversation between the Uzumaki and the Senju for some time. Now they were offering gifts? They clearly wanted something. 

"And can you prove that you are our blood?" 

Tobirama's red eyes cut to the sentry to his left, and he is abruptly reminded of why he doesn't like it when Touka is on guard duty. She's a severe, funny woman who takes the job seriously enough, that's true. But where Tobirama would be silent, preferring a potential enemy to eventually talk themselves into their own demise, Touka wanted immediate answers. She was like Hashirama that way, Sage help them all. 

The woman raises an eyebrow at Touka, but takes a couple of steps forward. One of her men moves ahead to do the same, but the woman puts out a hand to stop him. She takes off her nagitana and hands it to him; he balks at having the weapon thrust into his care, but he takes it anyway. The woman, the leader of this contingent, walks forward until she is roughly a hundred yards away from Tobirama. 

"Before the Uzumaki were a family, a young man of that line named Kazuya married a princess of Fire Country called Hatsumomo. They bore three children. One perished in infancy. The second, Masayo became the first clan head of the Uzumaki. Her younger sister, Konohako, was wed to a young man by the name of -,"

"Teijirou."

Tobirma doesn't need to look over his shoulder to know that his brother has entered the conversation. Hashirama places his hand on Touka's shoulder, and their cousin stands down. 

"It was Uzumaki Konohako's massive chakra reserves and water affinity, combined with Senju Teijirou's doton affinity that gave birth to the Senju clan as we know it today," Hashirama says. "Without Uzumaki Konohako's skill, the Senju clan would have perished in the early warring days."

The woman nods politely at Hashirama. 

"You know your history, cousin," she says. 

"I do."

The woman puts her hands firmly at her sides and gives Hashirama a bow befitting his station. Tobirama recognizes now that the woman is old, older than the two of them are at least by half. Hashirama was twenty, and Tobirama was eighteen, but this woman is at least in her mid-thirties. That was ancient by shinobi standards. 

"I am Nobi Minako, clan head of the Nobi of Uzushio, and one of her founding families," the pink haired woman says as she rises from her bow. 

"It is Uzumaki Ashina-sama's wish that Uzushio and her cousins in Fire Country remember Uzumaki Konohako's blood so that we might aid each other as family in this period of great war."

Minako turns halfway, and flicks her wrist towards her men. Slowly they approach.

"We offer fuinjutsu of varying kinds. Flash bombs, smoke bombs, sealing scrolls, chakra absorption and disruption seals," she says, waving her hand over the small wagon. "We also bring honing oil and whetstones enough for the whole of your army, and thirty Uzushio blades."

Tobirama's eyebrows would rise into his hair if he were any other man. 

There was fuinjutsu in the world of course, but he knows that it is an art form practiced to perfection in Uzushio. Uzumaki Konohako lived many generations before him, but she had kept extensive journals cataloging her own seal work. They had been transcribed by hand and kept in the family; Tobirama has studied those journals, and he knows his some odd great-grandmother Konohako was a genius in her own right.

But here was  _new_ fuinjutsu. Scrolls freshly inked with designs and arrays recently laid down onto page. If he had any less composure, his hands would twitch towards the information. He had been fumbling around with ideas for a kind of transportation fuinjutsu, something that would give him unrivaled speed on the battlefield.

The Uchiha were uncannily fast with their Sharingan, but something that could bypass that speed, something that their eyes wouldn't be able to track was what Tobirama was after. This information - this fuinjutsu just dropped into their lap could Tobirama develop his own. It could help turn the tide of the war.  

Minako seems to know exactly what he's thinking because she gives him a knowing smile. 

"Nobi-sama," Hashirama says, "on behalf of the Senju, I thank you and Uzumaki-sama for this gift. Please, come inside. We will house and refresh you. It is a small way to repay such a large kindness, but it is what we have to offer."

Minako gives Hashirama a light nod of her head. 

"A warm bed, a hot meal, and good blood between the families is all Uzushio asks of you, Senju-sama," Minako says. "Your shelter is repayment enough."

"Of course," Hashirama replies. 

Before his brother has a chance to get into a complimenting competition with their Uzushio cousins, Tobirama raises his hand. Touka and the other sentry, Hideki back off to guard primary camp, leaving enough space for Hashirama to turn and guide Minako inside. 

Her men come up to flank her as they enter the camp, and Tobirama turns around to bring up the rear. Hashirama leads them to the main family compound where he and Tobirama mostly live by themselves. Hashirama made and unmade all of the homes in the camp at will, and had always a handful of extra rooms to spare in their own house in case of allies needing temporary rest. 

Once the Uzushio contingent is showed into their rooms with the promise of a hearty dinner and a discussion about how to use the fuinjutsu they brought with them, Hashirama waves at him. Tobirama easily comes to his brother's side as they move quietly down the hallway. 

"They want something," Hashirama says. 

"Of course they do," Tobirama replies. 

They're just about in their twenties, which means they've survived long enough to get that old, which means there's no time for naïveté. 

"The question is what."

Hashirama folds his hands into the large sleeves of his yukata. Tobirama sticks his hands into the pockets of his black pants. 

"Information is probably out," Tobirama says. "They knew who I was as soon as they arrived. The woman, Minako, she called me cousin. If they know that much, they've probably got spies all over Fire Country, so they definitely know more than they're letting on."

"Maybe," his older brother says. "They just really want to help us."

Tobirama can't help but scoff at that. Altruism doesn't exist in war. It was too good a way to get you or your loved ones killed. 

* * *

Dinner with the Uzushio shinobi is a quiet affair. They are exceedingly polite; they eat all that is offered to them, and make good conversation with he and Hashirama. Touka is present for the sake of having woman's company, though she is a difficult woman all things considered. 

Nobi Minako produces a slim scroll from her hip and carefully unrolls it. She waves her hand over the ink on the scroll, and from it is produced three fine white bottles and a set of pristine white cups, decorated with turquoise and blue swirling designs. 

"Another gift," Minako says, a light smile on her face. "From Uzumaki Ashina-sama. We in Uzushio find that a drink shared between strangers is an auspicious start to a friendship."

Minako expertly handles the cups, Tobirama watching her hands all the while. It would be unwise to poison them now, but it would not be the first time someone had tried. Tobirama was sure it would not be the last. If there were poisons in the cup that the entirety of Uzushio was immune to, then this woman would be destroying Senju leadership in one fell swoop. 

It would fall down to Uzumaki Ashina, who was technically the last living person directly related to Uzumaki Konohako through her sister, Uzumaki Masayo. He would, by blood rights, have full authority over the Senju. Tobirama narrows his eyes; was that their game? It made little sense. Of course the Senju were mighty, and had survived a state of constant war over several generations. But who on earth would want to elbow their way into that kind of conflict? Even for territory or resources, it didn't make sense. 

No, Uzushio was an isolated island off the coast of Fire Country. They had been closed in on themselves so long, neither offering nor refusing aid since those first Uzumaki sisters birthed the generations before Tobirama's. Uzushio had no reason to poison the heirs to the Senju. It wouldn't have made any sense. 

"And a drink shared between families?" Hashirama asks, voice warm and kind. _'There was a reason he was the firstborn,'_ Tobirama thinks snidely. _'He's terribly good at this.'_

"Drinks among families," Minako says as she pours the sake, "are auspicious starts to arguments."

It gets a laugh out of Touka, and Tobirama can't help the smirk that quirks up at his own lips. 

"I'll hand it to you," Hashirama says, following Minako's movements as she distributes the sake. "That's a very good proverb."

Minako smiles, and she drinks first to prove herself. She poured from the same bottle for all of them, so there's a clear indication that whatever happens to the Senju will happen to the Uzushio shinobi. Tobirama looks down at his cup; he's never been a particular fan of alcohol. He doesn't much like the taste. 

Touka knocks back her cup like she's got nothing to lose. When Tobirama looks at her, she gives him a jaunty wink. Tobirama picks up his own cup and drinks before his brother does; better he die than Hashirama. 

It's sweet, which isn't what he's expecting. It has a warm, honey flavor to it. It hardly burns as it goes down, and it leaves a pleasant feeling in his stomach. 

"So, Minako-san," Hashirama says after finishing his own first drink. "What is the argument that you would like to start?"

She gives him a smile and pours a second round for all of those assembled. 

"Uzumaki Ashina-sama and our council of clan heads have decided that Uzushio has failed her cousins in Fire Country," Minako says. "Masayo-sama and Konohako-sama were sisters, and we dishonor them by being so distant to one another. Offering you our aid in the form of combat ready fuinjutsu is the first step in rectifying this distance."

"And what is the second step?" Hashirama asks. 

Minako puts her cup down and places her hands in her lap. It's the clearest indication she can give that says she means business. 

"We would like to teach the Senju fuinjutsu."

The room stills. Touka might be choking. Tobirama hardly notices. 

Skill sharing like that  _didn't_ happen. Families guarded their ninjutsu with a fearsome kind of protective instinct. Not teaching outsiders, refining their techniques only among those who could use them; that was how clans survived the wars. It was what made the Uchiha such a bitch to fight, and it was what pushed Tobirama to constantly reach for the impossible in terms of his own style of fighting. 

"That is a very generous offer," Hashirama replies diplomatically. 

Minako gives a delicate shrug of her shoulder, and picks up her cup to drink again. 

"Uzumaki Konohako was a master of fuinjutsu. It is only right that her descendants are masters as well," she says smoothly. "Besides, it is not so generous to offer someone their birthright."

"And what would you ask in return?" 

Minako's eyes slide over to him, and Tobirama is abruptly aware of the fact that this woman has probably seen more than he has. Sure, he has been fighting since Butsuma decided it was time for him to do so, but Minako has at least ten years on him. Her chakra is Uzushio brilliant, and coiled tightly in on itself. If they were to do battle, Tobirama isn't sure of who would win. 

"Nothing."

"Nothing?" Hashirama asks, cutting in. 

Minako shakes her head. 

"Uzushio has long lived in isolation," she says. "We are battered by storms, which makes it difficult for us to participate in world affairs. But we know of the wars you, our cousins in Fire Country are facing, and we know that we have been silent too long."

She looks at each of them, from Hashirama, to Tobirama to Touka. Her eyes look almost sad. 

"Your children are dying still," she continues. "We want to help you end this war."

Not win, Tobirama notices. But end. He wonders what exactly she means by that. Hashirama had tried reasoning with the Uchiha once. Butsuma had ensured that it hadn't worked out. They were only still fighting now because - well, because they hadn't figured out a way to stop. Peace talks and negotiations were difficult when you had blood on your hands. No one believed anyone wanted peace. 

"Who would you presume to teach?" Hashirama asks. 

Tobirama casts his eyes at his brother, considering. It's a good question. They couldn't exactly spare armfuls and armfuls of their fighters, and not all of them had chakra control fine enough for the art of fuinjutsu. Tobirama had managed to start creating his own, but they were still in the early phases, and they needed work. He didn't want to splice himself going one place to the next with a transportation seal. 

"Senju Tobirama," Minako says, turning her attention onto him. "It is my pleasure, on behalf of Uzumaki Ashina-sama and our council, to invite you to Uzushio so that you may study our fuinjutsu."

"Absolutely not -,"

"What my brother means to say," Hashirama interrupts, "is that this is a generous offer at a somewhat inopportune time."

Minako nods in understanding. 

"Of course," she replies. "The offer stands whenever Tobirama-sama is ready to accept it. We will accept any conditions he sets with his stay in Uzushio, within reason. He may bring a personal guard, for example. He may have private quarters on the island, or may lodge with his cousins in the Uzumaki compound."

"How long would you have him?"

"However long it takes for him to master our arts," Minako says. Then, with a knowing smile she adds, "From what we have heard of Tobirama-sama, it should not take him very long at all."

Hashirama drinks his sake. Minako takes his cue and drinks herself. Her men behind her drink as well. Tobirama finds that he cannot have another drop. Touka doesn't seem to feel the same way. 

"And are there any other steps," Hashirama asks after a handful of quiet moments, "to bridging the gap between our families that Ashina-sama thinks are necessary?"

"If Tobirama-sama's time in Uzushio is fruitful," Minako replies, "we should see no reason why we should not mend our families not only through knowledge, but through marriage as well."

This time, Touka is well enough prepared for the offers of the Uzushio shinobi to surprise her. She doesn't even spit out a drop of the expensive sake in her mouth. 

"Marriage?" Hashirama asks. 

"Uzumaki Mito-sama, Ashina-sama's only daughter," Minako says, "is a lovely young woman. And she is close to you in age."

* * *

The Uzushio contingent stays for three days, during which time, they teach large groups of Senju shinobi how to use the seals they brought with them. The Senju are wary around these brightly haired, brightly eyed shinobi. More than a handful of them defer to the men rather than to the woman who leads them, which causes a small measure of fuss. 

Touka was one of the few kunoichi in the fighting ranks of the Senju. She was only one of ten that fought, and even that was a high number for them. She and the others stick to Nobi Minako's side, eyeing the men of their clan with distaste.

It would take more time for the remnants of Butsuma's reign to ease its grips on the minds of the Senju. He had never allowed kunoichi into battle, preferring to keep them at base camp for healing and constant pregnancy. If he had let kunoichi into the war sooner, perhaps his youngest sons would not have had to die. It's a topic Tobirama thinks on often, though he loathes himself to do it. 

He has one of their flash bang seals in his hands, and his fingers are curled at the edge of the fine paper. Out in the clearing, Minako's men are showing the Senju how to use smoke bombs in a fight without getting blinding themselves. 

"You're my right hand, and you're our second best fighter," his brother says from behind him. "You're an asset too valuable to lose."

"I'm also the smartest person in the clan," Tobirama muses, carefully eyeing the seal matrix. Lightning, yes, and wind. But how did they make it so bright? Was that chakra? 

"I taught you everything you know about kenjutsu, and I learned it all  _after_ you did," he continues. The amount of chakra in the seal determined how long the flash bang would last, but could a delay timer be placed on it? 

"What I learn," Tobirama says, "I can teach when I get back."

Hashirama isn't happy, that much Tobirama can feel. His chakra is agitated, upset. He watches as one of the Uzushio shinobi easily dodges one of their clansmen, then slaps a seal on his arm. The other Uzushio shinobi goes down in a second; his chakra has been halved. Tobirama itches for that kind of advantage. 

"This," Tobirama says, lifting the seal to his brother's eye level, "this and everything else they've brought with them will give us an edge we've never had before."

It's half the right thing to say and half not. Hashirama is not a fan of war. He does not enjoy the fighting, especially not when it is against whom he considers a friend. Not for the first time, Tobirama wants to spit on his father's grave. He wasn't a big fan of Madara himself, but Tobirama knew that the other man didn't want to see any more of his younger brothers die the same way Tobirama and Hashirama didn't. 

"If we use what we know to push the Uchiha back, gain the ground we've been losing these past few months, then we can get peace talks in," Tobirama presses. "If we force it to a stalemate, after long enough, everyone will want to surrender."

Butsuma had fought for supremacy. He had wanted to wipe out the Uchiha. Hashirama fought to foster an amount of understanding. Neither had worked so far. The Senju were losing ground, but not losing men. It was strange, this little impasse that Hashirama and Madara had reached in battle. The Uchiha were taking land, but not lives. 

But it would not be long before the Uchiha were at their front door. They needed a stalemate so that someone would demand peace. The Uchiha knew little of fuinjutsu. Throwing new attack patterns at them would catch them off guard. It would push them back, surprise them, maybe even give the Senju a chance to corner them. 

"I don't like this, Tobirama."

He sighs and carefully rolls up the seal before placing it back in his weapons pouch. 

"I'll be taking Touka and Ginjirou with me."

Touka was one of their best spies, and if anything escaped Tobirama's notice, it wouldn't escape hers. Ginjirou's salamander summons were swift message bearers, and were much less noticeable than messenger hawks. 

Hashirama sighs because they both know that Tobirama is right. This is necessary, even if they don't like it. The two remaining elders they have that haven't died in the war were chomping at the bit to have new allies; they had all but started drawing up Hashirama's marriage contract for Uzumaki Mito, whom he hadn't so much as met yet.

From the pocket portraits that Minako had brought with her, the young woman was an obvious beauty. She would be easy to marry if her temperament was good. And even if it wasn't, the elders wouldn't hear of Hashirama not marrying the Uzushio heiress, not if her father was so blatantly offering her hand. 

"Be safe, otouto." 

Tobirama balks, just the smallest bit. Hashirama hasn't called him 'younger brother' since they were actual children. It was too affectionate, as their father put it. And there was no time for affection when death's jaws were waiting around the corner. When Itama and Kawarama died, both Tobirama and Hashirama had taken the advice to heart. 

Their affection with each other had been difficult ever since. Which wasn't to say they didn't like each other; their camaraderie was quieter, sometimes more gruff. They didn't refer to each other as anything other than their names. Perhaps that had become a kind of charm; the last time they had called a brother 'otouto', both of those little brothers had died. 

Tobirama holds out his arm, and his older brother takes it. They pull each other in for a brief hug, and Tobirama can feel the way his brother does not want to let him go. 

"Don't worry, brother," Tobirama says as they pull away. "I'll be sure to tell Mito-sama you're only half as ugly as your portrait implies."

It gets a snort out of Hashirama, which is enough for him. 

On the fourth day, Tobirama, Touka, and Ginjirou rise early with the Uzushio shinobi. After a brief goodbye, and Hashirama's thanks to Minako and her people, after well wishes for learning and safe travels, they set out for Uzushio.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sakura's playing hard to get and she doesn't even know it lmao
> 
> enter tobirama! he's a very difficult boy to write! touka and the handmaidens are gonna get on like a house on fire, lemme tell you know. 
> 
> comments are food for starving artists xx thank you for reading!


	7. Chapter 7

They reach the border of Fire Country a little under a week later. Tobirama stands at the beach, the sand shifting beneath his sandals. His fur collar suddenly seems redundant. It's warmer than it is in Senju territory. The balmy heat will take some getting used to.

"Excuse us, cousin," Minako says, lifting a hand and waving him back. "Stand over there for a moment, please."

Tobirama nods, and he, Touka, and Ginjirou step aside as they are told.

Minako chooses a patch of sand, and her men follow her. She uses the butt of her nagitana to begin drawing in the sand, her men using bō staffs and their own nagitana to join her. They all move in near perfect synchronization, curving over and under each other as they each draw their weapons through the sand.

It occurs to him almost immediately that they're crafting a seal, and a large one at that.

He's never seen an Uzushio shinobi create a seal. He's seen them use fuinjutsu, he's been taught how to use it by Minako and her squad. But he hasn't seen anyone ever make a seal. Their movements are fluid, artful, careful. They anticipate where each other is going to move next, filling spaces and emptying them when required. They hardly even look at each other. 

It looks the same way Touka and the other kunoichi do battle. The way he's been told he and Hashirama look when they're at each other's backs, fending off the enemy. This fuinjutsu is a battle dance, in its own way. And it's over before Tobirama can peer down at the array they've created to try and puzzle out the way it works. 

"Alright," Minako says, leaning a bit on her nagitana and looking out at the Senju that wait for her. "Each of you to the center. Keep an arm on each other, focus your chakra to your feet. About enough to fill a thimble. We'll take care of the rest."

Touka gives him a light jab in the side with her elbow. 

"A thimble?" she mouths, finely plucked eyebrows arched in disbelief. 

Tobirama can feel the Uzushio bright chakra reserves of the shinobi that hail from Whirlpool Country. A thimbles worth of chakra from the Senju will likely be supplemented with the strength of Minako and her squad. Tobirama and his cousins only needed to pump their chakra in the seal so that the fuinjutsu knew who to take with them. 

"A thimble," Tobirama repeats, walking to where Minako tells them. 

He stands, and places one hand on Touka's, shoulder, and the other on Ginjirou's. Their armor is firm beneath his grasp, and he wonders if they, too, have begun to swelter in the heat. The island will be much worse, he can already tell. 

He peers down at what is obviously a transportation seal under his feet. It looks so much different than his own scribbles. His had been straight lines of kanji, down in a tidy row. This is a perfect circle, with lines and phrases swept throughout it, curving up and over itself. 

It doesn't surprise him to discover that this is perhaps why his own space-time fuinjutsu has failed in its developmental stages thus far. Time didn't move forward and backward, and neither did space. Jumping from point A to point B wasn't as simple as leaping ahead or back. You had to slip under and over and through, all the way around. There and back again. A full rotation outside of space and time. That's what you needed to make the seals work. Circles. Not lines. 

He doesn't have much time to think about it. There is a tugging at his navel, Touka's hand squeezing his shoulder brusquely, and the steady feeling of Ginjirou's reserves, totally unruffled by this method of travel. To think Tobirama had expected a ship to ferry them to Uzushio. 

* * *

Touka has never seen this many women in battle armor before. Ever. Not in the Senju compound, not from the Akimichi. The Nara were too reclusive to tell. The Yamanaka were led by a woman called Inoko, and because of it, they were not allied with the staunch traditionalist Senju. The Aburame were isolationist, preferring to stay out of the way of the wars between the Senju and the Uchiha. And the Uchiha had about as women fighting on the front lines as they had men staying home and doing the washing: none. 

So when Touka and her cousins land in the middle of Uzushio on a massive transportation seal that mimics the one Minako and her squad had formed on the beach, only to see women and men walking as equals, armed not to the teeth, but wielding their power with an easy grace, Touka's jaw immediately drops in surprise.

Her first thought, is that if Uzumaki Mito is even half the warrior that the random street women of Uzushio seem to be, then she and Hashirama are going to have absolutely terrifying children.

Her second thought is that the Senju elders have  _no_ idea what they're getting into by drawing Uzumaki blood back into the Senju gene pool. If Uzumaki Masayo had been the first clan head of the Uzumaki, had been the first  _leader_ of Uzushio, then Uzumaki Ashina being a man was likely just a coincidence of birth. Uzushio was founded by a woman. And even if she wasn't currently ruled by one, the Land of Whirlpools clearly was egalitarian enough to never forget who had founded their little nation.

Touka is pretty sure she never wants to leave. 

"This way, cousins," Minako says, guiding them away from the massive seal. 

Touka drops her arms from Tobirama and Ginjirou. She can tell the salamander summoner is already trying to figure out which of his little friends to send back to the mainland. They won't be able to move via the seals the way he, Tobirama, and Touka had. The poor things would likely have to swim. Which meant that every message sent back to Fire Country had to count. 

He's already going to have a lot to write about. What with women being allowed to walk in the streets, carrying weapons and children in kind, and all. Not to mention the sealing arrays that cover nearly every part of the island. 

As they walk, the sun is warm on Touka's cheeks. She can feel a sea breeze, and it runs its way through the village. There's the sound of wind chimes and bells, of laughter and shrieking children. A little boy volleys a water balloon at a little girl; she snatches it out of the air and throws it right back in his face. 

Uzushio is filled with color, and not just the buildings. The people, too. They are red and yellow and orange haired, with eyes like jewels, every last one of them. They all wear garments similar in design; high collars and flowing sleeves, pants with cuffs that are high around the ankle, sandals that expose more of the foot than ones in Fire Country.

Some of them have different hair pieces; tama kanzashi, clips, combs, and bells. Some of them have seal arrays peeking out from beneath their sleeves; some have piercings in the lip, or above the eye. It's a strange and colorful world, full of bright tiled roofs and laughter. 

It is nothing like Fire Country, where the war has raged for generations. 

Touka is acutely jealous of these people, whose ancestors closed in on themselves. Logically, she knows it is because Uzushio is in such a perilous position. Whirlpool Country is hit by storms, and often. Of course they would have little time to help their cousins in war when nature itself was at war with the little nation. 

But all of that was changing, wasn't it? With Tobirama learning their senjutsu, and Hashirama marrying Uzumaki Mito. 

Grimly, Touka thinks of how many Uzushio shinobi will be willing to die for cousins they have never known. She doesn't know if she hopes the number will be small or large. 

"You'll all be housed in the Uzumaki compound," Minako says. "They're your blood cousins. The rest of the clans and the rest of Uzushio are your cousins by affection."

The Uzumaki compound looms ahead of them, marked by a stone placard with their name written on it. The compound is marked by its deep red roofs, the color of blood and dark wine, and the young woman Touka recognizes from her portraits. 

Uzumaki Mito is waiting at the front door to meet them, along with Uzumaki Ashina, and a woman that must be Mito's mother. 

"I leave you in their capable hands," Minako adds, stepping to the side so that the families may meet. 

"Minako," Ashina says to her, "you have done well in safely guiding our cousins to us. I trust this means our fuinjutsu was well received."

"Very much so, Ashina-sama," the pink haired woman replies. "Though wary at first, the Senju were eager for their birthright. Especially Senju-kun and his older brother."

"Is that so?" Ashina asks, eyes tracking over the three Senju shinobi before him. 

Touka almost wants to laugh; as if anyone dangling information in front of Tobirama's face would get anything less than a thousand questions from him, along with a senbon between the carpals for holding out on him. 

"Then you will enjoy your time here in Uzushio, Tobirama-kun," Ashina says, eyes surprisingly kind for a man of his age and position. Touka only knows the stuffy old men of the Senju. "We are always happy to share our knowledge with those who seek it."

The woman, red haired and green eyed, nearly an exact copy of her daughter save for the slates of dark grey she clearly inherited from her father. 

"Come inside," the woman says warmly. "We will show you to your quarters, and we will give you refreshments for your long journey."

She gestures them forward with wide open arms, and Touka takes a moment to notice the three golden hair clips that carry her bangs. They're the same ones Mito wears, but they are different than the dark gold headdress that Ashina wears with easy grace. 

"Minako," the woman says as the Senju move as one unit into the bosom of the Uzumaki clan compound, "please, return home and dismiss your men. You will have much to discuss with Kaori and Hikaru-chan."

Minako laughs at that, blowing her hair out of her eyes. It's a relaxed movement, one that Touka would never even consider doing in front of her clan head especially not in front of foreigners. Hashirama was her cousin, yes, but he was still the leader of the Senju. Minako laughs at Uzumaki Ashina's wife like they are old friends. It's too familiar. It's - off-putting. 

"Has Tsubaki been causing trouble, then, Marishi-sama?" she asks, folding her arms across her chest, looking from the older woman to her daughter. "I hope she hasn't given you any cause to gut her, Mito-sama. She can be very aggravating."

Mito seems more hesitant with her smiles, and Touka can guess why. The girl is only just now meeting the cousins and brother of the man she is going to marry. She's likely nervous. Or maybe just unhappy.

"Ask her about her spar with Utano," Mito replies primly. "And the rest of my guard. They've nearly ruined the Sharing Grounds."

Minako's shinobi roll their eyes and chuckle, and Touka wonders how tightly knit this island must be for everyone to know seemingly random people with such intimacy.

"I'll chew Hikaru's ear for that," Minako says, "and I'll give Tsubaki's a tug. Thank you for notifying me that the Nobi are wild as our name implies."

Minako bows at that, and beats her retreat. Touka watches the older woman as she goes, and wonders what it must be like to be a woman leading a clan, to speak with such ease to the person who runs your nation. To laugh, and breathe easy among them.

"This way," Marishi says, an indulgent smile on her face. "Your rooms have already been prepared."

The Senju follow in a partially stoic (Ginjirou), partially awed (Touka), partially vulture like (Tobirama) silence. The Uzumaki clan compound is resplendent, full of lush green grass and clear pools of water, like dozens of tiny lakes within the compound's walls. There are a small number of children and adults milling about, some chattering excitedly with one another, others practicing katas, or playing games of shogi on their front porches.

They give the Senju polite waves as they go by. Touka returns them with similar enthusiasm. Tobirama looks incredibly confused. Ginjirou is as impassive as he always is.

"Here," Marishi says, leading them to the largest of the homes. It must be where the clan head lives, because it is even more opulently decorated with discreet fuinjutsu and a massive garden of brightly colored flowers.

"Your rooms are all connected for your comfort," Marishi says, leading them through the sprawling hallways.

She, Mito, and Ashina guide them, while the Senju follow. Though Touka knows they are all stepping silently as shinobi do, she can't help but feel clunky and awkward in her armor. These Uzushio shinobi move like water over stone. It's a delicate economy of movement that she immediately envies.  

"If it pleases you, lighter clothes have been prepared for you," Marishi adds, stopping in front of a door before neatly stepping inside the room. "We had assumed that you would not be prepared for our climate, so we took steps to ensure your comfort."

The room is airy and bright. Comfortable in a way that Touka had not expected. From the sliding doors on either side of it, it is the room at the center of the three connected ones. She knows instinctively that Tobirama will want one either on the left or the right; it would be expected for him to sleep in the centermost room, and it would be the first one attacked if someone came for him in the night. 

"Baths have been prepared for you," Marishi adds, "and snacks will be brought to your quarters when you are finished bathing. We will meet again for lunch, and discuss what exactly you wish to learn from us, Tobirama-kun, Touka-san, Ginjirou-san."

The Uzumaki matriarch nods to each of them as she speaks, and then with the air of a queen, she turns and leads her daughter and husband out of their quarters. Touka is flabbergasted. 

She turns to Tobirama and Ginjirou, who look similarly surprised. Touka pulls her bow and quiver off her back and dumps them on the floor. It catches the attention of the men, who regard her with almost twin expressions of confusion. 

"I fucking love it here," she says, beaming. 

* * *

The first days are easy. 

Ashina and Marishi expect them to be tired from their journey, but quick to begin studying. They know that Tobirama has a family to get back to and a war to finish. They insist that he wait a day or two until they begin, if only to recover from the week long trip it took to get to Uzushio. On the third day, he is chomping at the bit to get started. 

They teach him fuinjutsu from the ground up. They look at the arrays he's done for himself, and with polite disdain, they encourage him away from his first forays into the art form. They teach him how directions work, how energy flows in the natural world, and in turn how it should flow in a seal. How the latter should imitate the former. How good arrays began with ink and chakra, and how what kind of ink made all the difference in what kind of seal would be formed. 

They make him start from the beginning. Mito watches over his shoulder as he learns how to write all over again. Her grey eyes are narrow and sharp when he curves his wrist in a way that she doesn't like. She reprimands him politely, with a voice that clearly could turn from honey to steel in the moment it takes Tobirama to adjust his grip on his brush. 

Ginjirou watches as a solitary guard, paying close attention to how Mito sits beside him, how Ashina guides him through theory, and Marishi explains application. Tobirama learns that fuinjutsu is not as simple as pulsing chakra into a piece of paper and watching it explode. It's about temporarily rewriting the way that chakra works and interacts with the world around it. Controlling it into a finite space and putting a cap on it until it was necessary. 

Like setting water to boil. 

He takes to it quickly, because he loves to learn. He has always loved to learn. He is curious, ravenous for information. They throw everything he has ever thought about fuinjutsu out of the window. They return him to his great-odd grandmother Konohako's principles of balance, of giving and receiving in equal measure, of using the natural forces of the cardinal directions and of the elements to ground fuinjutsu, to make it function. 

He scraps his old notes about what he had tentatively called the Hiraishin, realizing that the array is too simple for what he wants it to do. It lacks directional balance. It's too rigid, not fluid enough. It doesn't behave the way time behaves, it behaves like it's trying to bludgeon someone over the head rather than manipulating them. 

"It's the difference between going into a fight with a sword at the ready or a senbon up your sleeve," Mito explains one day.

Two of her handmaidens -an all women guard that Touka had taken to flirting with and sparring with in equal measure- are sitting politely at the doorway, chatting with each other while a third teaches Touka and Ginjirou the hand sign language that everyone on Uzushio seems fluent in.

"You can't come at fuinjutsu like you want it to fear you," Mito says, her own sleeves rolled up to keep the ink away from them. 

She's been showing him how to select the proper ink for a proper seal. How black was good for all fuinjutsu, generally speaking, but how the herbs in certain kinds of ink altered the way a fuinjutsu would work. How mustard seed or ground pepper in ink would make it more accessible for katon or exploding fuinjutsu. How water lilies lended themselves to suiton, how medicinal herbs could keep a wound in stasis for long enough to get the injured to a medic. 

"You come at fuinjutsu like you want it to trust you," Mito explains. "It's something you work  _with_ not against."

"Then why am I bringing a senbon to the fight in the first place?" Tobirama asks from where he sits, still adjusting his calligraphy so that his handwriting is up to Mito's standards. 

She makes him write for at least an hour before she'll teach him anything, every single time they get together so that Tobirama can learn something. He's already ambidextrous with a sword, but Mito looks over his shoulder at his handwriting with his right hand and laughs at him before snapping at him to start over. 

She's a surprising amount like Touka. She hides her heart under a veneer of icy strength, the way the Senju kunoichi must. But Mito is also like Tobirama in that their sense of humor is largely the same: dry and a little mean. 

She's witty, and she's kind, and Tobirama thinks if he has to get saddled with anyone for a sister-in-law, he's glad it's going to be her. 

"Because," Mito says, like she is a goddess deigning to teach man how to wipe his ass, "it'll lay you flat on your back if you don't have a defense against it."

She's mixing ink and water in her own inkstone, and a slim piece of sealing paper is beside her. It's a straight line seal, one that Tobirama will not be allowed to attempt until he's much better at circular fuinjutsu. The less lines a seal had, the more complicated it was. The flash bombs and chakra draining seals that Minako had brought to Senju land are suddenly much more interesting in Tobirama's eyes; they're deceptively simple looking. 

"You have to have perfect chakra control when making the seal and when activating it," Mito explains, lifting her brush to begin her work. "Too much or too little during either process will prematurely detonate a seal."

She uses her right hand to begin, and her strokes are deft and quick. Tobirama stops practicing his own calligraphy to watch her work. She steadies her right hand with her left, eyes narrowly focused on the seal in front of her. 

"People lose fingers, arms, even their lives because they don't have solid control when they're crafting fuinjutsu," Mito murmurs as she works. "So you can't come at it with a sword or without one."

She finishes the array in a matter of minutes, and when she's finished, she gently waves her palm over a perfect small scale storage seal. She looks up at him with a grin on her face, the superior looking one that she only shows when she knows she's one of the smartest people in the room. 

"So you come at it," Mito says, "with a senbon."

Once he understands the principle, the days move by faster after that. Tobirama has hundreds of questions, and there always seems to be someone who can answer them. When he wants to know how to perfect his Water Dragon technique, Marishi takes him out to the little pools that speckle the Uzumaki compound, and makes him summon a single drop from a little pool a meter away. 

When he is keen on figuring out the ways in which what kind of sealing matters works best for which fuinjutsu, Ashina takes him into town to speak with the Uzushio civilians responsible for making the sealing paper, whose lack of moldable chakra makes them perfect to make the paper. 

Mito answers almost none of his questions, and makes him write his own name backwards about three hundred and forty times, or at least until she is satisfied. When he needles her about technique afterwards, she calls up one of her handmaidens, who sits him down and talks him through one of their clan's particular methods of using fuinjutsu. 

They're all incredibly talented shinobi, whose families have specific and intricate ways of using the preferred fighting technique of Uzushio. Raiu Utano's raiton affinity trench knives make his hands itch with want for a similar kind of weapon. Tatsumaki Momo creates palm sized tornadoes with the pocket sized seals she keeps in her weapons pouch. Fubuki Rin could make long term detonation seals that could cause avalanches and earthquakes. 

Hisame Usagi is a deaf shinobi (something Tobirama doubted he would ever see in Fire Country) whose disability was supplemented by several extra tenketsu on her body, which essentially allowed her a kind of hearing that Tobirama is sure would drive him mad. She was a sensor, like he was, but far more attuned to the natural world than he ever had the time to be.

Unarigoe Kikue holds and keeps his attention; she can combine her suiton and fūton to create hail. Which she can also create with her sword, a similar weapon to Utano's trench knives. Which is as fascinating as it is mind boggling. 

He bothers her the most, to her endless cackling delight, and eventually, the he begins to exhaust her with his questions, she drags him across the village to her own clan's compound (Touka and Ginjiriou faithfully following behind) to talk to her cousin Ryo. 

Ryo is - to be frank, a very attractive man. And in true Uzushio fashion, he is friendly and easy with his affection. The last person (and still, one of the only people) who held Tobirama's affection would only give it to him on the battlefield, and even then, Hashirama was much too paranoid to allow Tobirama and Madara to fight for long. 

Ryo is a pleasant distraction from that same, bitter longing hidden in the Uchiha clan's camp. And what's more, he's damnably clever. He looks at Tobirama's rudimentary arrays and doesn't laugh the way Mito does. Instead, he gives Tobirama water colors and tells him to paint what he wants his fuinjutsu to do. 

It's peculiar, because Tobirama has never considered himself the artistic type. There isn't quite time to be artistic when Senju Butsuma is your father. Hashirama recites poetry when he's stone cold drunk, and even that rarely happens because he is so often needed on the front lines. 

But Ryo teaches Tobirama how to paint with careful, patient hands. And Tobirama has so many ideas that he blows through paper and color almost faster than Ryo can replace them. 

He starts spending his waking days in the Unarigoe clan compound, and sometimes in the Fubuki, or the Tatsumaki, or the Raiu as well. They happily teach him what they know. Touka bends her head to Fubuki Rin's and begins to learn how to fold fuinjutsu into seals, how she could trap an entire regiment in its tracks with the right number of seals on the right number of trees. 

Ginjirou writes his reports back home, often quiet, but with eyes that are always open. Tobirama gets overfed by every single Uzushio resident over the age of thirty whose home he happens to enter. He's even referred to civilians when it comes to calligraphy and painting styles, brush stroke and technique. Fuinjutsu isn't the only brush based form that Uzushio practices; the island is full of artists, craftsmen, and poets of every degree, each of whom have something to teach Tobirama. 

And as much as he knows the necessity of returning home with this wealth of information, when he walks the island with his own cousins; when Ryo guides his brush into yellow or blue; when he sits down to a meal with Mito, Ashina, and Marishi; when he stands on the beach with the sand sifting between his toes watching the children of Uzushio play in the water, Tobirama can't help but wish he could stay in this pocket of the world where peacetime still exists. 

* * *

Mito is in the middle of performing an arduous combination of doton, katon, fūton, suiton, and raiton katas when the point between her collarbones gets unbearably hot. At first, she thinks it's because she's made an incorrect step. Tsubaki has assured her on multiple occasions that the heat from her chakra could become overwhelming if her movements were off balance, too quick or too slow.

She's felt a sharp heat before at the site of where she wants her seal to be. But it's never been like this. Usually, it's a quick flare of heat, there and then gone. Now, it is insistent enough to make her pause for a millisecond during her forms.

Tsubaki, from where she is sitting in front of Mito meditating, opens her green eye.

"You're ready then," she says, a little smile curling over her lips.

It is rare to see Tsubaki smile. The expression on her face is usually more akin to a grimace. But now, it is genuine, almost fond. Mito knows instinctively that Tsubaki is not smiling for her. She gets that look on her face whenever she's remembering something, or someone from her past.

The smile softens the hardness in Tsubaki's face. Her hair has gotten a little longer, no longer peach fuzz. She doesn't have enough for the tama kanzashi that the Nobi wear in their hair, but wisps of pink curl where they grow. They look feather soft.

"What do we do next, Tsubaki-san?" she asks.

Hikaru and Usagi are having a conversation some distance away, while Utano lazes about in the sunshine. Rin is never far off; it's illegal to shed unnecessary blood on the Sharing Grounds, but with talk of Mito leaving Uzushio to become Senju Hashirama's bride, her guard has subtly doubled its constant presence around her.

Usually, she would only take one or two of her maidens with her. All of them coming to examine Utano's spar with Tsubaki had been a rare show of force.

"Next," Tsubaki says, rising to her feet, "we mark it on your flesh. We'll need a brush, an inkstone, and ink."

 Utano springs up from her place on the ground. 

"I'll take care of it," she calls as she bounds away from the Sharing Grounds. 

It won't take long for her to find them. Sealing supplies were easy to come by in Uzushio; all you had to do was bother one of the uncles or aunties passing by. Having the materials to form seals at any given point in time was a paranoid habit ingrained in every shinobi on Uzushio soil. You never knew when you'd need to erect a mass scale barrier seal for the hurricanes that came to buffet their shores. 

She's gone maybe five minutes before she returns to the Sharing Grounds, brush and stone and ink in hand. She gives them to Tsubaki with a jaunty salute before returning to her patch of sunlight and laying back down. 

Tsubaki gestures to her to sit, and Mito comes to her knees in front of the woman.

"Watch carefully," she says, so Mito does. 

She watches as Tsubaki pulls back the sleeves of her purple jacket, exposing her fine wrists. The inkstick is colored a rich dark purple, and it smells vaguely of marigolds. 

"It will need your blood because it will be your seal."

Mito looks up at Tsubaki, before fumbling with the kunai pouch at her hip. 

"How much?" she asks, holding her kunai delicately over her forefingers. 

Tsubaki hums and says, "Five drops."

Mito cuts her index finger neatly, and carefully encourages five drops of blood to drip onto the inkstone. As she does, Tsubaki grinds the inkstick against the blood on the stone, mixing the copper smell of her blood with the marigolds of the heavy purple ink. 

"There is chakra in blood," Tsubaki says, voice soft. It sounds as if she is repeating the words, like they are words from her master. "The chakra in your blood will combine with the ink, so that the ink recognizes you when it is placed onto your skin."

She carefully removes the inkstick from the stone, and with her brush wipes off the last dredges of wet ink from the stick. With her brush, she slowly stirs the combination. Her movements are methodical, precise. Mito watches, and remembers these instructions from the long explanation of the Byakugō that Tsubaki had given them before her release. 

"Are you ready?" she asks, eyes finally lifting to catch Mito's gaze. 

Mito swallows. 

"I am."

Tsubaki nods in affirmation. 

"It's between your collarbones, yes?"

"It is."

"Would you mind, Mito-sama?"

Mito looks down at her high collared blouse. Her fingers come up to fumble with the buttons, carefully taking them down until her clavicle is exposed. 

"It's necessary that a second person apply it," Tsubaki explains. "It is usually difficult for people to draw on themselves."

"Of course."

With that, Tsubaki lifts the inkstone and brush and begins to apply the seal. She starts with four dots for the cardinal directions, the four elements, and then with lightning at the center. The ink is cold, and it makes the hairs on the back of Mito's neck stand up.

"Focus, Mito-sama," Tsubaki says. "Water to the north. Fire to the south. Earth to the west. Air to the east. Lightning to ground. Focus. Separate them, and let them settle. Then I will connect them."

Mito's eyes flutter shut, and she wills her chakra to calm its raucous movements through her tenketsu. She focuses on the northern dot on her clavicle, focuses on the way it feels to draw up a gale the way her foremothers did. She focuses on the southern dot, and can feel her katon affinity leap to follow her order. They balance each other out immediately.

When she focuses on doton, beads of sweat prickle at her brow. Earth is not her best element, but Tsubaki is murmuring quiet encouragements, and Mito will not cower to something she knows she can conquer. She focuses on her own stubborn nature, and doton moves because she will not budge.

Air is hard to grab onto, flickering out of her grasp, evading her until Mito feels Tsubaki's exhale those inches of space away from her exposed throat. Fūton bends to her will as Mito breathes in the air that Tsubaki has breathed out. 

"Good," Tsubaki murmurs. "The basics are finished. Now alter the route for your body. Lightning to the north, earth to the south. Air to the east, and water to the west."

Earth and lightning to temper each other. Fire caught between being fed and being extinguished. When she thinks about it like that, it's almost comically easy compared to the first time around. 

"I'll begin now, Mito-sama."

The brush comes to Mito's skin again, but this time, there is a sharp crackle of energy as she draws the centermost point of the diamond and then begins to connect them. There is the smell of marigolds and ozone, and the smell of jade dew tea on Tsubaki's breath.

She can feel it, can feel the flickers of lightning that rise off her shoulders, that make her hair fray out of its tidy bun. She can taste ash in the back of her throat, a fire within her coiling up and pressing forward on her chest. She does not lose control. Her seal is balanced, and so is she. 

And then, as soon as it begins, it is over. The brush has filled in the dark purple diamond, and Tsubaki pulls away. Mito opens her eyes to see Tsubaki carefully examining her seal work. There's an instinctive urge to pull her collar together, to button it back up. She feels all the more exposed under Tsubaki's appraising eye. But the ink is wet, and she won't ruin her own hard work. 

"Alright," Tsubaki says, eyes cutting up from the point between Mito's collarbones to her eyes. "It's ready."

"For what?" Mito asks, throat dry with the ash that was only just there. 

Tsubaki's lips quirk up in a little grin, and this one - this is for Mito, isn't it?

"For storage," Tsubaki says, carefully placing the brush and inkstone down on the ground. "All you do now, is focus your chakra into the seal, like you're focusing it for a jutsu. But instead of releasing the chakra, you leave it there to be released at a later date."

Mito leaves her hands in her lap, refusing to allow herself the comfort of playing with her collar. The ink is drying, still, but is not all the way dry yet. 

"Will it stay this way? Forever?"

Tsubaki shrugs. 

"The ink will stay there until the chakra you used to make the seal matches the chakra you've stored within it. Then the ink will chip off. It's only there to help you focus exactly where your chakra needs to go. Once you've got enough stored, you won't need the ink to remind you, so it'll go away."

Mito nods. Her eyes flicker up to the seal on Tsubaki's forehead. Two circles instead of a diamond, laid out because Tsubaki held two different kinds of chakra in her body. Mito wonders how that must have occurred. The two circles suggested opposing chakra natures; how had Tsubaki  maintained her focus while she stored the second person's chakra? Had it hurt? Had it felt foreign?

She wants to ask what Tsubaki's seal looks like when it is released.

"Thank you," is what she says instead. 

Tsubaki inclines her head politely and replies, "Of course, Mito-sama. I am happy to share my knowledge with you."

It occurs to Mito then, that this sharing of knowledge, though common in Uzushio, mimics a very specific tradition. A marriage tradition. 

Couples were the ones who taught each other new fuinjutsu upon their wedding, folding their techniques together to better protect themselves. Embarrassment threatens to tackle her over from the inside. She had been so quick to demand this information, that she hadn't even noticed she was playing happy family with a complete stranger. 

Though as she watches Tsubaki unfurl her sleeves, and summon a small suiton to clean the inkstone, the Nobi woman doesn't seem so much like a stranger at all. 

"It's customary to teach in turn for being taught," Mito says before she can stop herself.

She's not an impulsive person, not usually. She is typically calm and utterly in control of her actions. She had stopped herself from fidgeting with her collar, from touching the wet ink of her seal. But now, she can't seem to shut her own mouth. 

"Reciprocity, balance," Mito says, "these are the first cardinal principles of fuinjutsu. And they are also how we share them here on Uzushio."

She can feel eyes on the back of her neck, several pairs to be exact. She wonders if Hikaru is translating what is transpiring to Usagi. She wonders if she will be more or less embarrassed later if he is, or if Usagi will hear it from Rin or Utano. 

"I have been - working on a seal that mimics your ability to release bursts of chakra from your tenketsu," Mito says. "It's a small scale, full body barrier seal. I was ah, inspired by your spar with Utano. If you like, I could teach you how to use it."

"Oh," Tsubaki says. 

The look on her face makes Mito think she's made a mistake. She isn't sure if she should apologize for being so frank; is Tsubaki sensitive about having people teach her, because all of those that taught her how to protect herself as a child are dead? Did she expect Mito wouldn't want to teach her anything? Or worse, is she insulted that Mito has reengineered her own effective defense mechanism and bastardized it into a new form?

By now, she had sparred with every single one of Mito's guard, but had never so much as breathed in Mito's direction when it came to a combat situation. It showed in the easy way she spoke with the handmaidens after that, the way she jostled their shoulders when they spoke with her, the way she volleyed insults back at them when they teased her.

And Mito envied Utano and Momo and Rin, Kikue, and Usagi; what was it about her that seemed to make Tsubaki want to keep her at an arm's distance? If the woman won't treat her with the easy camaraderie that makes everyone on Uzushio call each other cousin after they've fought, maybe she will once Mito's taught her something in turn. But has she overstepped a line by offering in the first place?

"I'd love to, Mito-sama," Tsubaki says, interrupting the whorl of thoughts suddenly accosting Mito. "I would be honored to have you teach me."

She will blame the flipping in her stomach on her newly formed Byakugō later. Now, she watches the way Tsubaki's single bright green eye widens as Mito smiles back at her. 

* * *

He’s in Ryo’s family’s house in the Unarigoe family compound. Ryo had been taking him through the steps of how to combine water and wind releases to form the hail stones that marked his family’s specialty. They had been at it for several hours. It was something that Tobirama took to only part way because of his natural suiton affinity.

He had figured out how to supplement his suiton with sharp blasts of wind that vaulted them forward, but he was having trouble getting the water to a cold enough temperature so that it would harden.

Ryo had insisted on a break about three hours in, disappearing inside of his home and returning with a handful of oranges. One he tosses to Touka, who lounges easily on the wood verandah, shoes off and hair in a low tail that makes her hair look much less angular.

Ginjirou is playing a card game with Ryo’s younger sister Risa. She has a bowl of sliced melon at her side, each stuck through with a toothpick. She passes a slice to Ginjiriou in bold faced attempts at sneaking a peek at his cards. He indulges her with a little grin tucked into the corner of his mouth, and lets her peek when he takes a slice from melon from her hand.

“You should focus on something else for the rest of the day,” Ryo says. “You’ll fry your brain if you keep whittling at one problem all day long.”

Tobirama catches his orange, rolling it between his palms. He only starts peeling it when the fresh, summery smell of orange hits his nose as Ryo starts unpeeling his own.

“Do you have any other ideas? Things you want to study while you’re here?” Ryo asks, popping an orange slice into his mouth.

Tobirama shrugs, carefully peeling the orange and watching as its skin falls off in a perfect spiral.

“I’ve got thousands,” he replies, picking up the peel and dropping it beside his knee.

“Well pick one,” Ryo says, like it’s easy.

Tobirama wonders if it’s just that easy. His time in Uzushio is severely limited. He doesn’t have a lot of time to learn everything he can for the people he has to teach back home.

Offensive techniques, defensive techniques; he’s been hoarding everything his cousins in Uzushio have been able to teach him. But he’s still concerned that it isn’t enough. Not enough to save a handful of lives, to push back on the Uchiha where they encroach on Senju borders, not enough to end the war and secure the future his brother has been dreaming of since they were children.

“Transportation,” he says, picking something because that might make a difference.

Being able to get out of a fight that can’t be won, or able to ambush forces with unmatched speed. The Uchiha fought fast and dirty under Madara’s reign. Not without honor, but they were faster than the Senju by half, something the Senju made up for with brute strength and solid defensive capabilities.

A technique that could imitate the Uchiha’s speed would be a start. Not enough, but a step in the right direction.

“Short to mid range transportation seals,” Tobirama clarifies, picking an orange slice and chewing slowly on it.

Ryo hums, drumming his fingers against the verandah.

“There are some shinobi on the village who have messed with it,” he says, “but not a lot of us are very good at it. We have to specialize in it, and the training is difficult.”

“Minako-san, the woman who brought us here, she could do it with a squad of three others,” Tobirama interjects, looking to Ryo.

He nods affirmatively.

“Nobi-san is one of the people who can do it, yeah, but she, like everyone else on the island needs a group of people to do it,” Ryo says. “The seal matricies require fine control, and it’s difficult to do by yourself since you have so much to focus on.”

Tobirama doesn’t wilt. He’s a grown man and he’s been fighting in a war since he could stand on his own.

“But,” Ryo says, lightly jostling his shoulder against Tobirama’s. “There is one person on the island who’s managed to do it on her own.”

“Who?”

Ryo looks vaguely uncomfortable. It’s subtle. Only a little pinch around his eyes, so soft and quick it barely even reaches his mouth.

“Her name is Tsubaki,” he finally says, smiling. And though it’s a genuine look of fondness on his face, something about it is just this side of forced.

Touka, who has very little sense of propriety when she’s among people she likes (mostly Tobirama, because she likes messing with him), sees no problem in asking the question Tobirama wanted to ponder in silence.

“What’s wrong with Tsubaki-san?”

Ryo fidgets just a little bit, before he sighs.

“She’s a ward of the Nobi,” he explains. “She was a war orphan, and experimented with fuinjutsu. She misjudged some distances, and it spat her out here. Minako-sama took her in.”

War orphans. The mention of them made Tobirama still. It wasn’t rare, but people whose families died in the war – they were taken care of. Or at least, clan heads did their best to find arrangements for war orphans.

“Who was her family?” Touka asks, voice softer than it had been before.

Ryo shrugs.

“She doesn’t know,” he says. “She lost them when she was young. She’d been in the wild for years before she ended up here.”

It makes Tobirama’s stomach turn. He’s seen children whose families had been lost to them, had seen how hard their faces were. Touka had gotten more severe when her parents were killed in combat. She had been eleven at the time, full grown by Senju standards.

For Tsubaki to be young when her parents died, she must have been at least six, maybe seven or eight.

That had been how old Itama had been. How old Kawarama had been.

“Who?” Tobirama asks, forcing his cupped hand to relax where it curves around the orange in his grasp. “Who was her family aligned to.”

Ryo shakes his head, chewing thoughtfully on his orange.

“It’s not my place to say,” he says, voice firm. “Tsubaki is a Nobi of Uzushio. She tends to our fires, and warms us in our winters. She doesn’t belong to any of the clans in Fire Country anymore.”

That was as good as saying she belonged to the Senju or the Uchiha. The two single most divisive clans in Fire Country. Her name – it was the name of a flower. The Uchiha weren’t fond of naming their children after nature. ‘Tsubaki’ was the name of a girl born to a vassal clan of the Senju.

Tobirama sucks on the inside of his cheek, the orange suddenly tasting bitter in his mouth.

Another family lost. Another child failed by his inaction, by his brother’s, by his father’s poor battle planning and insistence that the war lasted longer than it had to.

This Tsubaki, whoever she had been before she came to Uzushio, was a ward of one of their clans now. She didn’t even know her name. The Senju would have no way to claim her even if they wanted to. And Tobirama wouldn’t force her away from the family she had found. He wouldn’t want to, and he knows his brother wouldn’t want to either.

“You could ask one of the Raiu,” Ryo suggests. “They’re some of the fastest on the island, as a rule. Or you could ask Tsubaki.”

Tobirama watches Touka bite into the orange like an apple. He tries not to shudder; she’s terrible, she really is. But she keeps eye contact with him, her finely plucked brows lifted just so as if to say they should meet this girl their family never should have failed.

“You have to be able to travel long distances to travel short ones,” he says, his smile suddenly seeming a little less rueful and a lot more affectionate. “And Tsubaki jumped from Fire Country to Uzushio by herself. She’s the one to ask.”

Touka lifts her eyebrows as if to say ‘wow’ with her face instead of her mouth. Tobirama chews and swallows another slice of orange.

“When can we meet her?”

* * *

She’s been in Uzushio for almost over two months now and they still haven’t removed the seals on her arms.

Sakura flexes, staring down at them, mouth quirked downwards in dissatisfaction. How long would it take before they trusted her? She had not missed the fact that Hikaru was her escort around the island, that he was always around when she was teaching Mito the Byakugō. She was too good a shinobi, too weathered to not notice.

The seals had never been activated once she had become part of the Nobi. She had no doubt that if her spars with Utano or the rest of Mito’s handmaiden’s had gone south, that they would immediately be activated, immediately disarming her (literally) in the fight.

But they hadn’t been. They had remained on her arms, dormant, quiet, thick lined and black, curving and curling around her bones just above her veins. Waiting for her to mess something up.

She narrows her eyes at them. Hates them a little bit. Wonders just how long it will take before she is allowed to walk among the Uzushio shinobi as one of them, instead of as an outsider still on probation.

“Ane-ue,” Hikaru shouts from the hallway, jarring Sakura out of her reverie. “You’ve got visitors!”

Sakura huffs, folding her sleeves down over her arms. It was sweet of the boy to talk to her like she was a sister, but every time he did it, she couldn’t help how suspicious it made her of him. Was he trying to gain her trust? Or was he really as affectionate as he seemed?

“Who is it, Hikaru?” she shouts right back.

She didn’t often have callers. Even Mito didn’t come directly to the Nobi compound for her. She preferred to send one of her handmaidens ahead to fetch Sakura to the Sharing Grounds, where the Uzushio princess waited.

“Cousins!” Hikaru replies.

Sakura rolls her eyes. Everyone called everyone else on Uzushio ‘cousin’. It was a bad clue and Hikaru knew it.

She rises to her feet and leaves her small, sparsely decorated room. There is a portrait on the wall of a clutch of yellow, white, pink, and red camellias. Ryo had done it for her to celebrate her induction into the Nobi family. She had immediately hung it up in her room.

Sakura leaves her bedroom behind, briskly walking down the hallway of the traditional house. The Nobi were not the largest clan of Uzushio, but they were not the smallest. They claimed twenty blood members, and twelve members by marriage. Sakura was their only ward.

She doesn’t bother moving quickly, figuring whoever needs her help is probably someone she’s met before. She’s sort of popular on the island, if only because she is such a novelty. Despite the friendliness of Uzushio folk, they knew when to leave well enough alone. They were an island of incredible emotional intelligence.

Sakura thinks back to the way she sobbed into Minako’s shoulder, to the way Ryo had looked in her eyes and seen her grief, and she is grateful.

She dips her finger below her eye patch to scratch at the crest of her cheekbone when she steps into the parlor where Hikaru is standing at the front door.

“Who is it then?” she asks, looking down at her dark haired sort-of brother.

“Tsubaki-chan!”

And that’s Ryo’s voice. She drops her hand on Hikaru’s shoulder, opening her mouth to ask him why he was so cagey about Ryo calling on her when Sakura notices the three people behind the strawberry blonde Unarigoe shinobi.

Dressed in light Uzushio civilian clothes, is Senju Tobirama.

She hasn’t seen him since the war, and he was different then. Brought back to life with an impure technique used in an impure time, skin cracked, held only in the living world by chakra and spite.

She doesn’t recognize the woman or the man with him, but Tobirama is unmistakable. Even if she didn’t know him by his shock of white hair, his bright eyes, or the red scars on his cheeks and chin, she would know his chakra.

Sakura is not a sensor, but when Kaguya had started stealing chakra from the living and what remained in the dead, she had begun to figure out how to identify people by their chakra signatures.

There had always been something slightly off about the chakra of those brought back to life, and even when she had stood beside Senju Tobirama when he was dead, she had been able to feel the strange staticky texture of his chakra, too large for his armor to contain yet tightly controlled and ready for combat.

Karin said he had felt like a lightning bolt in a steady river. Looking at him now, in the flesh, Sakura is inclined to agree.

“Ryo,” she drawls, forcing herself to sound less shell shocked than she is. “First you drag me into the Nobi, now you drag strays into my house?”

He laughs at her, and that sets her at ease. Even if Hikaru’s affection is not to be trusted, Ryo’s can be, to an extent. He did not have to be kind to her once she was released from Uzushio’s cells, and yet he had been anyway.

“Strays?” he asks, laughing still. “You’ve had your head in the sand for weeks now, haven’t you, Tsubaki-chan?”

“I’ve been training our princess, Ryo,” she says, popping her free hand on her hip. “Forgive me if our beloved Mito-sama occupies most of my attention.”

Ryo shrugs in a silly way, a conceding way.

“I’ll give you that,” he says. He steps inside, and the Senju step in behind him. “May I introduce our cousins from Fire Country? Senju Tobirama, Senju Touka, and Senju Ginjirou.”

They each nod to Sakura as Ryo introduces them, and Sakura nods back.

“I’m Nobi Tsubaki,” Sakura says, “though I suppose you already know that. What has Ryo promised you of me?”

“Tsubaki-chan,” Ryo whines, “I would never.”

“But you did.”

It’s a comfortable rapport, too much like the one she used to have with Naruto, but just different enough so that the hot coil of guilt in Sakura’s stomach is something she can attribute to Kurama’s chakra in her tenketsu.

“Unarigoe-san said that you have experience with long distance space-time transportation fuinjutsu,” says Ginjirou from over Tobirama’s shoulder.

Sakura looks to him and gives him a pleasant smile.

“I have some,” she says, “though Minako-sama might be of better use to you. She’s not in at the moment, but -,”

“With all due respect,” Ginjirou interjects, “Minako-sama must perform such fuinjutsu with a group of similarly specialized shinobi. You appear to be the only person on Uzushio who can do it by themselves.”

Sakura lifts an eyebrow, though anxiety stabs its way up her spine. How much else do they know? There wasn’t much to tell. Sakura had only given half the truth to Ryo, and he had only given half the truth to the rest of the Uzushio elders. It wasn’t like they were going to believe that she had traveled more through time than space.

“It’s a bit more complicated than that,” Sakura says.

She gives Hikaru a light pat on the shoulder, encouraging him towards the kitchen.

“Will you put on a pot of tea for our guests?” she asks.

Hikaru narrows his eyes at her, obviously not wanting to do so but well aware that it’s the polite thing to do, and if he doesn’t and his mother and elder cousin Kaori find out, there’ll be hell to pay.

“Thanks, otouto,” she says, winking at him as he stalks off to his chore.

Sakura puts her hands on her hips and gives the Senju a light smile before gesturing them further into the home.

“Follow me into the sitting room,” Sakura says, “and we can have a nice chat.”

They dutifully take off their shoes and step into the Nobi head family’s household.

“I’ll be leaving then, Tobirama-san, Touka-san, Ginjirou-san,” Ryo says. “Bye, Tsubaki! I’ll see you around!”

“Tell Risa I’m on to beat her at mushi-ken whenever she’s ready for a rematch,” Sakura bellows as he turns to leave.

“You can get to my sister when you get through me!”

“You’re not that hard to beat!”

She smiles at him as he goes, watching him flip her off while the Senju’s backs are still to him. She sticks out her tongue and he jogs the rest of the way to the compound, sure to be back to pick up the Senju in a good number of hours.

She comes into the sitting room and sits down easy on one of the cushions on the floor. The Senju arrange themselves artfully; Touka is at Tobirama’s right, and Ginjirou stays towards the door.

After a moment’s hesitation, Sakura rises and opens the sliding doors that open the room to the gardens just behind the Nobi head family’s house, the back gardens that the rest of the houses on the compound all surround.

“I made the jump mostly by luck,” she says, rehearsing the lie she told to Ryo.

 _‘Naruto and Sasuke,’_ Kurama supplies helpfully, from the shallow pool in the meadow of Sakura’s subconscious.

It was strange how lovely the place was, considering Sakura’s state of mind usually looked more the like the crater cracked landscape of what used to be Konohagakure.

_‘They fueled the seal enough for three people.’_

“My companions and I charged the seal for three people, but we were ambushed before we could make the jump together,” Sakura says, sitting back down. “I can help you with designing a transportation matrix, but my chakra wasn’t the only one that brought me here.”

She can feel Tobirama assess her. His eyes track her eye patch, her short bright pink hair, her single green eye, her long sleeves, conspicuously covering her wrists. Uzushio fabric was light, but it was still much too warm outside for anyone to wear such a garment. Or at least not anyone who didn’t have anything to hide.

Acutely, she panics.

Senju Tobirama is a sensor. He’s not likely to have interacted with the bijuu yet; Sakura is still too far behind in the past for such interactions to have occurred yet. But she still has Kurama’s massive, ancient chakra stored inside of her.

She will look different to his eyes, different from the Uzushio shinobi that surround her. In a terrible roundabout way, she is the first jinchuuriki.

“Unarigoe-san,” Tobirama says, diverting her attention, “said that it was more about fine chakra control than chakra output. Would you say that’s true?”

Sakura remembers her shishou and forces her nerves into a bundle of calm. Senju Tsunade is Tobirama’s niece; if Sakura can handle being Tsunade’s apprentice, can handle fighting a war alongside her shishou, can handle having held the woman’s hand as she died, Sakura can handle this.

“They’re about sixty-forty,” she says, steeling herself. “If you’re moving a farther distance, you need a massive amount of chakra, but if your control is shaky, you’re risking your array going pear shaped and charring you and whoever you’re jumping with.”

Tobirama folds his arms across his chest and considers the information.

“And shorter distances?” he asks after a moment.

“Think of how much chakra it takes you to walk from one end of the room to the other. Or how much it takes to leap from one end of a clearing to the next,” Sakura explains. “It’s about using only as much as you need to get there, but using it all at once to take you there.”

“And that doesn’t burn out the seal after multiple uses?”

Sakura shakes her head.

“Not if your matrix is solid enough,” she says. “If it’s fluid, it should be able to handle it.”

Tobirama hums and from what is apparently only moonlighting as a shuriken pouch, he produces a small journal.

“Will you look at these and tell me what you think, Nobi-san?”

Sakura waves her hand at him as he lays the journal down on the low table in front of them.

“Tsubaki, please,” she insists. “Nobi-san is much too formal, Tobirama-san.”

He nods at her instruction, and Sakura picks up the journal.

She’s staring at the Hiraishin.

A rudimentary one, yes, but it’s already much different than the one Sakura saw Naruto and Minato use during the war. The streamlined straightlaced design is all but gone, replaced with a typical Uzushio swirl.

The kanji moves carefully, winding in on itself to a single point, which will likely need to be charged with yin chakra. It’s on a more rectangular piece of paper than a slim strip, but if it continues developing the way it does, it’ll be in the hyper sophisticated straight line style of the deadliest fuinjutsu Uzushio had to offer.

The less that appeared on a seal, the deadlier it was. Sakura’s Byakugō was evidence enough of that. More complicated seals like the one used to seal Kurama into Naruto were such fuinjutsu, but that was also because the art form had been lost after Uzushio was decimated. What fuinjutsu remained in the elemental nations was repeated and rarely innovated until Tenten damn near started a revival of the practice before the war hit.

“It’s good,” she says, eyes tracking the details.

She doesn’t know much about fuinjutsu outside of her own seal and the one she cooked up with Naruto and Sasuke to vault them all into the past. But she knows the Hiraishin, or Minato’s version of it at least. Naruto had used the Hiraishin kunai, had mimicked the seal work towards the end.

But Tobirama’s already moving past that. If Minato is ever born in this world, ever decides to build on what Senju Tobirama has created, then his Hiraishin will likely be even faster than it was when he was born in Sakura’s timeline.

It strikes her in an odd way at that point, that she’s already altered the past. The fact that Tobirama is even in Uzushio is evidence of that much. This jutsu, the Hiraishin, it would turn the tide of the war.

This change seems much more tangible than the ones she’s already made, and she isn’t sure how to feel about it.

“You’ll need about ten to fifteen of them in battle,” she advises, “to mark targets, escape points, and the like. How do you plan to get them onto people?”

She peers up at him and his gaze follows her as she flips the pages of the journal, reading the notes in his margins. His gaze is assessing, critical. She wonders just what Ryo told him about her.

“I’ll mark tools,” he explains. “Kunai, my sword, even my men if possible.”

Sakura lets out a low whistle.

“Ambitious,” she says. But not outside of his reach. She peers back down at his notebook and taps the center of the new and improved Hiraishin.

“Try more yang in your ratio. Space-time fuinjutsu is just as physical as it is spiritual. If you use too much yin, you’ll get stuck in a pocket dimension and if you use too much yang, you won’t move any farther than your own feet can take you.”

Senju Tobirama honest to the Sage and back again, wrinkles his nose like a disgruntled cat. Sakura has no idea how to not laugh at the Niidaime.

“A pocket dimension?” he asks.

And while that is a conversation that might as well be screeching that she’s an inter-dimensional time traveler, it’s also one that she knows vaguely enough about to sound like an expert who clearly needs to do more research in her field.

Tobirama takes notes. It’s flabbergasting.

It’s peculiar explaining to him that there are different dimensions outside of their concept of space and time, that there are an unimaginable number of them and that they probably should not be explored unless you were also fairly keen on never making it back to your original one.

It serves to make Tobirama both curious and cautious. He soaks up information, asks question, and scribbles profusely in his notebook, already sketching out a realignment of the Hiraishin based on Sakura’s suggestions.

They’re debating the merits of carving the seals into the blade, or combining the Hiraishin with a smaller katon seal beneath, set to detonate if any chakra signature other than the one that created the seal is used to activate it, when Hikaru returns with tea.

And Mito.

“Mito-sama has requested your presence, _aneue,”_ Hikaru says, pointedly setting down the tea tray with enough cups for the Senju, Sakura, Mito as well as Rin and Momo who have accompanied her.

“Mito-sama,” Sakura greets, inclining her head politely to her, and ignoring the guard.

It was always polite to ignore the handmaidens when they were working within the village. The same way Sakura had learned to ignore the ANBU when she had first become aware of their presence. Still, she's happy to see Rin and Momo are with Mito today; it means Mito is in a good humor, to have two of her handmaidens who teased her most around meant she was in a mood to suffer their harping. 

“I wasn’t expecting you today. Have I forgotten something?”

Mito opens her mouth, then shuts it, shaking her head. She looks almost girlish when she does it, a little awkward. Then she rolls back her shoulders, and she is Uzumaki Mito, princess and holy terror alike.

“I had a question about the Byakugō,” she says, “but you look very cozy in here with my cousins. Tell me, has Tobirama-kun bored you to tears yet with his Flying Thunder Man technique?”

“Flying Thunder _God_ technique _,_ ” Tobirama corrects, rising easily to the bait.

Mito smirks at him, clearly happy to have gotten a rise out of him. Sakura rolls her eyes, and watches Mito primly sit down beside her cousin. Sakura watches Rin take up her post on the opposite side of the door as Ginjirou, and Momo sidle up next to Touka in what can only be a precursor to an already long going flirtation.

“I wouldn’t say I’m bored,” Sakura says, taking over from Hikaru and pouring tea enough for all of them. “He’s got very good ideas.”

Mito hums at that, and peers down at her cousin’s notes. She wrinkles her pretty nose, and looks from Sakura to Tobirama in obvious disdain.

“You’re an idiot,” she says to her cousin.

Sakura can see the moment she catches herself. She walked in off of her footing, surprised by Tobirama’s presence in the Nobi household. Clearly she had expected to see Sakura there, perhaps alone or more likely with Hikaru nearby.

She had entered too casually, too affectionately. She had shown her hand to Sakura completely by accident, and now she was scrambling to recover.

But for the life of her, Sakura can’t figure out why the Uzushio princess is trying so hard to pull back on her veneer of ice. Mito’s softness was an open secret, but she was always a brusque professional when it came to Sakura and the Byakugō. Likely because Sakura was an outsider.

She had made a mistake just now. Had shown too much of herself. And she was embarrassed by her familiarity, by her own comfort with the Senju in the room. She may have been trying to recover herself, but Sakura can't help but think that she likes this Mito better. The sharp one, the clever one, the dead-eyed gaze that said she was waiting for you to admit you were a fool so she wouldn't have to tell you herself. 

She was prettier this way. Softer, almost. Soft in the way all kunoichi learn they can be. Soft words before a raised fist. Hyper-aggression on the heels of rough affection. Like Tsunade had been. Like Shizune had been. And Temari, and Tenten, and Ino. 

For once the memory that comes doesn't make her want to vomit. It's a brief moment, a flash of times before the war. Ino with her hands on her hips, a little bit drunk and on the verge of losing an arm wrestling competition with Temari, whose throat was occupied by Tenten's loose arms and lazy kisses. Hinata trying to quiet them down before they got kicked out of the bar, and Sakura herself suckering civilians into bets even her shishou wouldn't take. 

It's fond and soft and easy, slipping in and out of her mind like water over her hand. She can only be grateful a meaner one hasn't come to accompany it yet. She can feel the panic rise in the back of her throat as visions of Tenten's hands on her own hips flutter in front of her eyes, replaced by Ino's, and then Tenten's again, and then Naruto's arms dragging her into a hug, and then Sasuke's arm dragging her bodily out of a fight she couldn't win. 

 _'Steady,_ ' Kurama says, voice pulling her out from the memories that threaten to bury her, right before Obito's eye can fill in his longing for Rin and his confused obsession with Kakashi.  _'Steady.'_

 _'Thank you,'_ she thinks, lifting her teacup with hands that tremor only finely. 

Sakura smiles, a little shakily from behind her cup as she drinks, and lets Tobirama bristle enough for both of them before he snaps, “At least be helpful if you’re going to be judgmental.”

Mito slides the notebook away from the two of them, carefully putting back on her mask of the stoic Uzushio princess that put a sword to Sakura's throat when she arrived in the middle of the country, and points one delicate finger at the center of the seal.

“First, you over-balanced with yin, and now you’re overcompensating with yang,” Mito says prim as can be. “This seal won’t take you across the street, much less across a battlefield.”

Sakura hums at that and watches Tobirama narrow his eyes.

“We want it to behave like a raiton,” he says, explaining himself, and Sakura has a split second to wonder when exactly she became a part of this ‘we’. “We need the extra yang to ground it.”

Mito scoffs.

“Who told you that? Utano?” she asks. “If you want it to behave like a raiton, you charge it with raiton chakra, and you balance the whole thing in the cardinal directions. You know that.”

Sakura cups her chin in her hand and watches.

“You can’t balance in the cardinal directions,” Tobirama says, not quite snapping at his cousin because it wouldn’t be appropriate in front of Sakura, but close enough. “It’s traveling _outside_ of them.”

“You have to write the seal within the bounds of the natural world or it won’t take you out of it.”

“That’s what intention is supposed to do.”

“Your chakra won’t know what intention is when this seal explodes when you charge it because it isn’t _based in anything tangible._ ”

“The seal would sooner splice me in half because _north_ isn’t a _direction_ in dimensions outside of this one.”

“And how do you know that for sure?”

“I don’t. But I need to write it as if I’ll be traveling through spaces with laws different than our own. _Intent_ is the same across space-time.”

“When you blow your hands off, I’m going to laugh at you.”

Sakura keeps her laugh behind her hand, but when it comes out, Tobirama and Mito are clearly aware that they are not alone anymore. Rin and Ginjirou are stone faced, and Touka is clearly too busy trying to coax a date out of a clearly infatuated Momo in the garden just outside to care.

“Maybe,” Sakura says, offering her suggestion like a peace offering. “Maybe if we layer the outer rings of the seal with counter balances of yin and yang, lightning and earth, with an off balance of water towards the end, we might get the combination you’re after.”

It makes Mito’s eyebrow twitch. It makes Tobirama look down at his notes, obviously furious he didn’t come up with it first.

“Suiton and doton will put the lightning in stasis,” Tobirama mumbles, “and that’ll let its speed be easily manipulated.”

“Do you have any idea how difficult it is to perfectly balance a seal with yin and yang releases?” Mito asks, clearly directing the question at both Sakura and Tobirama.

When she receives no answer, she tucks her arms into the wide white sleeves of her blouse, and hunkers down to teach them a lesson. Sakura’s pretty sure she’s seen her shishou make that exact same face while she taught Sakura a very hands on lesson about water birth, with her hand inside a kunoichi’s dilated vagina.

“There’s a reason so few people can perform transportation fuinjutsu, and that’s why. Balancing yin and yang is like tugging your arms and legs in opposite directions simultaneously,” Mito explains, speaking slowly not as if they are children, but as if they have missed a very important lesson. “That’s why you need several people to perform space-time fuinjutsu in the first place. It’s why doing it alone is damn near impossible.”

Tobirama looks up at that, eyes darting from his cousin to Tsubaki.

“Tsubaki-san did it by herself,” he says. “The chakra may not have all been hers, but she had to maintain its balance when she traveled. So it isn’t impossible.”

Mito looks stunningly aggravated, like she can’t bother not to look pretty when she obviously wants to cram her foot into her cousin’s instep.

“I said near impossible,” she says, looking at her cousin.

“I’ve had worse odds,” he replies, looking back down at his journal, then flicking his gaze back up to Tsubaki. “Do you think your suggestion would work best on the outer rungs or more towards the middle?”

And as Sakura leans in to look at where he’s proposing instituting her changes, she can just barely see Mito’s grey gaze on her, heavy with something she cannot identify.

After a few more minutes of mumbled changes and proposed revisions to the seal, Mito slams her cup of tea down on the table and snatches the journal from beneath their eyes.

“You two are going to blow yourselves and the whole island up,” she says, easily swiping Tobirama’s pencil from his grasp. “Now watch this, I’m only going to show you once. And for the last time, you _need the cardinal directions_ , I don't care how much _willpower_  and _intention_ you have.”

Her reentry into the conversation makes Sakura lean back out of it, happy that Mito is taking the lead. Her eyes had watched her just as severely as Tobirama’s had, but for a different reason, and she isn’t sure of what to do with that knowledge.

 _‘Yeah,’_ comes Kurama from inside her head, his voice a throaty, rumbling chuckle like rolling thunder, _‘She can be like that.’_

Sakura folds her arms across her chest, watching Mito work with her cousin.

 _‘Like what?’_ she asks.

_‘Fuckin’ intense.’_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mito is so much gd fun to write!!!! i love her!!!!


	8. Chapter 8

Tobirama awakens to the sound of stomping feet. It’s a familiar sound, a battle sound, one that makes him jerk upright from his place on the verandah. He takes a moment to reorient himself; he’s in the Unarigoe compound, at Ryo’s home. 

He hadn't noticed that he fell asleep in a patch of sunlight. It had been a slow day. Risa had brought them all watermelon her mother had sliced, and she had challenged them all to see who could spit the seeds in their mouths the farthest. Touka had beaten them all. 

Now, Tobirama hears Risa's familiar voice shriek and Touka jerks upwards, already yanking an arrow from her quiver to shove into the throat of whoever's frightened the girl. Uzushio has never been under attack, not ever. Tobirama's hand reaches out for his sword where he put it down beside him for his nap as footsteps thunder towards where he and Touka are gathering themselves quickly from their sleep. 

Risa throws open the door, and behind her is Ryo, dogging her steps. Her face is flushed with obvious delight, and when Tobirama realizes that her chest is heaving not from fear but from excitement, he allows his grip on his sword to relax minutely. 

"Akira-san's baby was born today!" Risa shrieks. "And so was Kenshin-san, the paper maker's!" 

Tobirama blinks. Touka carefully tucks her arrow back into her quiver. Ryo picks his little sister up, tossing her over his shoulder, where she kicks at his back in dismay. 

"It's a holiday," Ryo explains. "When two children of different families are born on the same day. Like when two storms collide."

"There's gonna be a  _festival_!" Risa hollers. "And everybody has to help! Wake up! Let's go!"

She manages to kick her brother right below the rib, and he drops her. Risa lands on her hands and feet, and springs back up. She runs, grabbing Touka's arm, and hollering for Ginjirou as she goes, and probably waking up everyone in the Unarigoe compound who didn't already hear the news. 

Tobirama looks back to Ryo who shrugs his shoulders, an easy smile on his face. 

"We won't make you participate," he says, "but it'll be a lot of fun. I don't think you have too many festivals in Fire Country."

Tobirama can count on one hand how many festivals he's been to. Participated in. Enjoyed. Aside from the mandatory ones, ones that venerate the gods the Senju hold, the number is at zero. There isn't time. And Butsuma had never been especially pious; it had been their mother who encouraged them to celebrate. But once she died, Tobirama had found it difficult to celebrate much of anything.

"Who is Akira-san?" he asks.

"A Tatsumaki," Ryo answers, eyes flickering to where Tobirama's hand is still around the hilt of his sword. 

Sheepishly, Tobirama puts it down and rises to his feet to meet Ryo. 

"He and his wife, Shinobu, they've had a girl," Ryo says. "Kenshin and Tomone have had a boy. Which is even more auspicious." 

"Oh?"

Ryo smirks and shrugs his shoulders. 

"Balance," he replies. "We've got a set."

That makes Tobirama chuckle, and he takes a moment to pick up his sword and put it on his hip. Ryo watches him, something sad in his eye. Tobirama ignores it, and looks out into the compound where Risa is shouting the good news, Touka and Ginjirou her bemused captives. 

"What do we have to do?" Tobirama asks. 

Ryo cracks his knuckles. 

"I'm glad you asked," he says. "Are you any good with a hammer?"

* * *

"We're the Nobi," Minako says, insisting on being the one who helps Sakura dress. "We tend to the fires. Meaning we have to start and extinguish all of the cook fires for the festival."

Sakura lifts an eyebrow. Minako slaps her wrist to make her still her face. She's plucking Sakura's eyebrows, which seems to be more trouble than it's worth.

"I don't understand why I need to look nice for it," she says, leaving her hands in her lap.

She can see the little pot of kohl and lip paint, and resists the urge to chuck them across the room. She's never been a pretty girl. That was never her deal. It was Ino's realm, and only hers when Ino brought her into it with her secret little grins, and the way she would kiss the lipstick off of Sakura's mouth once she applied it.  

It was always more fun smudging the make-up than putting it on. 

"You need to look nice because I said so," Minako huffs. "Honestly, you're worse than Hikaru."

"Do you pluck his eyebrows, too?"

Minako snorts, and finely rips several hairs out of Sakura's eyebrow until she's satisfied. Then she turns, picks up the kohl and dips a brush into it. 

"No," Minako hums, "but the dear boy hates brushing his hair. Gods know why. It's like he enjoys looking like a rat fell asleep and died on top of his head. Close your eye, Tsubaki."

Sakura obliges, and fights down the urge to snap Minako's wrist when one hand comes up to gently pull back the skin at her temple. Minako wastes no time. She draws one fine black line on Sakura's lid, and then she is finished. Sakura appreciates it; clearly Minako understands how sensitive she is about her eyes. She doesn't even bother asking if she can do the left eye; she just ignores it, preferring to go next to the soft red lip paint. 

"That isn't really my color," Sakura says.

Minako cocks an eyebrow at her, her own mouth already painted one such red. 

"How would you know?" Minako asks. "We breathe fire, Tsubaki, we must look the part. It's tradition. Now pout."

Sakura pouts. Minako puts a gentle hand beneath her chin and deftly paints Sakura's lips a dark red that adorns her own mouth. 

She's dressed in a grey happi, rather than the usual purple of the Nobi. The grey symbolizes ash, and the three white flames in their golden circle emblazoned on Sakura's back stands for the god Nobi, still eating the world even after she had burned all she had eaten to soft grey ash. Her momohiki are of a similar color, her tabi as well. The hachimaki on her forehead is white, threaded through with bright golden lines. 

Minako is dressed similarly, though as clan head, she is dressed more resplendently. She isn't wearing the headband for one, and her dark pink hair is swept back, her usual black tama kanzashi replaced with a stark white pair, with bright red beads dangling from them.

"On your feet, ladies!" Kaori barks from the hallway. "We need to get there first, or we'll never hear the end of it!"

Minako huffs out a laugh, and rolls back onto her feet. Sakura stands just a little bit faster, and offers her arm to her clan head. Minako smiles, taking Sakura's hand in the crook of her elbow and leading her out of the room. 

All thirty three of the Nobi are dressed in matching grey happi, with lips painted and foreheads tidily wrapped, all except for Minako. The children run ahead, barreling towards the beach. Hikaru's got a younger cousin on his shoulders, howling with laughter as they dart forward.

Even the adults move with a certain amount of speed. Only Kaori and Minako hang back, and Sakura as a byproduct. 

The beach is full of noise. It seems that all of Uzushio has stopped in the middle of their work to prepare for the celebration. Shops and stalls are either shut down or abandoned altogether. Artists and paper makers adjust their clothing as they help each other hang lanterns and banners celebrating the double birth. 

Even the Uzumaki have left their compound. Sakura can see Marishi smiling gamely at a young niece or nephew of hers, while a craftsman as Ashina's ear. Mito is nowhere to be seen, but her handmaidens are around. Rin shoots an arrow from one newly risen post to another, hanging up a string of small lanterns that Sakura and the other Nobi will have to light and keep lit. 

Momo and Kikue are helping to raise stalls. Usagi is organizing a troupe of Hisame children under her careful eye, instructing them not to get caught underfoot, and how they can best help the adults. 

"Minako-sama!" 

Sakura turns, automatically placing herself between her clan head and the offending person. The shopkeeper looks at her, a little bewildered, until Sakura recognizes him as Amida, the owner of a katsudon stand Utano favors. 

"Minako-sama, the cook fires," Amida says, bowing his head politely to her. "If you will. The whole of the island will be here soon, and they  _will_ be hungry." 

Minako places a gentle hand on Sakura's shoulder and she steps aside like water parting around a stone. 

"The Nobi will begin immediately, Amida-san," Minako says, assuring him. "Not to worry."

Amida nods, giving her his thanks, while Minako turns around to face her grey clad clan. 

"The eldest to the finest fires, and the youngest to the wilder ones," Minako calls. Her clan stands at attention as she speaks. "We will keep the lanterns lit, and the cook fires ablaze!"

A general cry of excitement goes up among the Nobi, adults and children alike. Sakura wants to keep herself from smiling at them, and finds that she can't.

"Grab a Fubuki to clean up your mess if you make one," Minako says, giving her clan a jaunty wink. "Dismissed!"

"Minako!" 

The Nobi clan head and Sakura turn their heads to see Nanami, the clan head of the Fubuki, sauntering towards them both in casual dress. 

"Keep your wildfires tame," Nanami says, sounding terribly serious. "My clan will be too busy making snow cones to get yours out of trouble."

Nanami locks gazes with Minako before both women start laughing. Nanami approaches and gives Minako a jovial one armed hug before her eyes sweep over Sakura. 

"How are the Nobi treating you, Tsubaki-san?" she asks. "A firefly told me you were better suited to my clan than to this one."

She punctuates her statement by bumping her hip against Minako's. The two women are of an age together, and clearly they've grown up teasing each other. It makes a wave of frothy nostalgia drag over Sakura. 

"They've been treating me well, Fubuki-sama," Sakura replies, watching her clan head shrug Nanami's arm off her shoulders. 

"You poaching on my ward, Nanami?" Minako asks. 

"She had something to teach Mito-sama," Nanami replies airily. "Would you try to poach her, if she were one of mine?"

"Tsubaki," Kaori says, interjecting, "come help me with Amida-san's cook fire, yes?"

Sakura, immediately grateful for the reprieve, nods politely at Nanami and Minako before beating a hasty retreat. 

Kaori, a tall woman with hair a pale heather purple, gives her a smile as they fall into step together. 

"Nanami-sama and Minako-sama have been friends since girlhood," Kaori explains. "The two of them can be a lot to handle together."

Sakura nods in agreement. The difference between the Uzushio clan heads and the ones that she knew from Konoha is striking. She could maybe see Inuzuka Tsume behaving in such a way with her contemporaries, but never Hyūga Hiashi, or Aburame Shibi. 

Inoichi had been something of an uncle to her, but he was always cool and professional in public. Chouza was probably the closest outside of Tsume to such boisterous, easy affection. 

She thinks of the Uzushio clan heads in that first Storm Council meeting, when she had been an outsider. She wonders if this lack of artifice, of professionalism being shown around her is a mark of how much they trust her. 

They haven't yet removed the intricate fuinjutsu from her arms, but they will joke with each other in front of her. In a roundabout way, she can absolutely see how Naruto came from this island of people. 

Their priorities were weird, but they were solid.

The two of them reach Amida's stand with little difficulty, and he's happy to see them. There are cooks all over the beach with fire pits and raised mounds, waiting to be lit by Nobi flames. Along the shore, as Tatsumaki people raise poles, the Unarigoe stamp them deep into the cold earth beneath the sun warmed sand. 

"Would you like to, or shall I?" Kaori asks, gesturing to the tinder nest Amida has prepared. 

"I can," Sakura replies. 

She's never been a big user of katon, but that preference had slid out of the window when the Zetsu had caught on to her attack patterns, and started anticipating her hits before she even thought to articulate them. She relied to heavily on doton and suiton, so she had to supplement with jutsu learned while running for their lives. 

She knew a steady number by the time she, Naruto, and Sasuke thought to go back in time. But Obito's eye makes that handful at least an ocean's full of techniques. She works through the hand seals slowly and sends a flame bomb the size of her thumb at the tinder. 

It catches immediately, and they're met with Amida's gratitude. 

"Not bad," Kaori says, nodding approvingly. "Think you can handle a couple more?"

Sakura smiles, enjoying the flipping feeling in her stomach that arises whenever she uses a jutsu outside of her comfortable nature transformations. It happens when she uses lightning as well; her water affinity surges up to meet it, to strengthen it. 

"Yeah," Sakura replies, feeling a little eager. "I'd be happy to."

* * *

Day settles into afternoon with much fanfare. 

Marishi is playing the benevolent queen, talking to each and every one of her citizens. Ashina allows himself to get roped into a goldfish catching competition with the little children. Rin had narrowly managed to drag Mito into the Fubuki compound so that she could fix up Mito's hair and make up to something - closer to what she thought was reasonable. 

It wouldn't be long at all before the tidy red waterfalls of hair Rin had narrowly managed to put together fell out because of Mito's own exuberance. 

She's at sea, her skirts soaked with water, because where else would she be? She's an Uzumaki; she belongs to the wind and the water. And while her parents tend to her people's joy, she and the others tend to their stomachs. 

They pull at the water around them in coordinated suiton strikes, tugging fish from the sea and into waiting baskets for the cook fires that the Nobi have prepared. It's messy work that nearly drenches Mito to the bone. Her sleeves are rolled up and her hair is pulled back, and she's  _working._ Settling her feet into the cool sand underneath the water, calling on her chakra, and tugging at the dancing tide to do her bidding, and bear its fruit. 

The smell of cooking food wafts high into the air, and right as one of Mito's elder cousins calls for the fishing to end, Mito's stomach growls riotously. It's as undignified as can be, the so-called princess of Uzushio drenched with sea water and sweat, her hair in disarray, and her stomach howling for food. But Mito is among her people, is among friends and family, and there is little need for propriety on a birthday such as this one. 

She ducks under one cousin's arm as he laughs at her, tugging up her skirts and darting back onto the beach. Tobirama is there, his arms crossed and looking oddly pleased. 

"I didn't know you were so talented with suiton," he says, throwing a towel at her head. 

Mito catches it, and rubs it over her face, smearing off the rest of Rin's hard work. 

"Katon and raiton may be my friends," she replies, wiping at the water on the back of her neck. "But suiton is our blood, cousin."

Tobirama grins at her, a private, warm expression and he jerks his head. 

"Kyo-san's made enough curry to feed a small nation," he says, hands tucked comfortably into his pockets. 

Mito scoffs. 

"That's only enough for about three Uzushio shinobi."

"I know," he replies. "Which is why we have to go if we want to eat."

Mito carefully plucks the three gold Uzumaki clips from her bangs, settling on telling Rin that the miscellaneous little black pins that held her hair up have been lost to the sea. She drops the towel Tobirama brought her onto her head, and lets her cousin guide her to where Kyo is doling out curry and rice to whoever lingers long enough by his fire to eat. 

Touka is already busy devouring a bowl of her own food while Ginjirou is off, allowing himself to get roped into the proud Unarigoe tradition of having ridiculous mushi-ken competitions at any given festival, holiday, or island-wide celebration. 

Tobirama and Mito easily get into line, and Mito tugs her towel down back around her neck. Her hair is long enough to reach her hips when out of its buns, and it'll take time for it to dry. There's still a good breeze on the sea, and the afternoon light hasn't faded into evening yet, so there's hope she'll be able to go to bed without having to dry her hair by hand. 

From across the way, Mito catches sight of a head of pink hair. It's Tsubaki, clad in Nobi grey. She's got a paper cone of shaved ice in hand, and Hikaru is at her side. He's laughing at her, or she's laughing at him. And it's probably the first time that Mito has ever seen Tsubaki look as unguarded as she does right now. 

Perhaps she has reason to. It's an impromptu holiday, and they're surrounded by allies. Maybe before, Tsubaki had never really relaxed because there was always the chance that someone would attack her. That she was unsafe. But she's been on Uzushio for months now. Has shared and developed and is beginning to learn new fuinjutsu. And she was changing. Slowly. By half inches and baby steps. Perhaps not softening, but dropping her guard bit by preciously constructed bit. 

As an Uzumaki, who knows that her island is nothing without the fearsome love of those who protect and inhabit it, Mito is pleased. Rarely do outsiders come into the fold, and every day, Tsubaki is more and more like they are. 

Tobirama bumps his elbow into her side, taking two bowls from Kyo's daughter, who valiantly ladles out curry and rice to each person that comes to eat. 

"You're staring," her cousin says, snickering. 

Mito's gaze snaps away from Tsubaki and back to Tobirama. 

"And you're a busybody," Mito replies neatly. "Or should I pretend you don't make puppy eyes at Ryo whenever he leaves the room?"

"Puppy eyes?" Tobirama asks, without humor. 

Entirely on purpose, Mito shovels a spoonful of rice and curry into her mouth, chewing with her mouth wide open if only it will upset Tobirama. She's a little petty that way. 

"You're right," she says, talking with her mouthful. "You're more like a drowned cat."

Rice flies from her mouth and lands on his shoulder. She slams a hand to her mouth to stop more from coming out, absurdly shocked at the consequences of her actions. Tobirama looks down at his shoulder and then up at her, and Mito stifles a rib cracking laugh behind her hand. 

"I hope you choke," Tobirama says. "It's what you deserve."

It takes her a couple of moments to gather her composure. She may be allowed a measure of silliness, of freedom on days of celebration, but she has to behave a certain way. A careful way. Neither of her parents have gotten as out of hand as she's just been. And even if it is just a quiet moment of affection between herself and her Senju cousin, Tobirama is still an emissary from Fire Country. Still someone she needs to impress. 

But it's difficult to keep herself serious, especially on such a happy day. She hasn't been able to cut loose like this since Yashiro died. And that was when she was twelve. Without him, Mito had caved in on herself, had worked twice as hard to be as good as he was, as solid as he was. Her stoicism was a defense against her grief. 

Tobirama has his same sense of humor. His same dry meanness, his same way of holding himself. It's difficult to not want to be close to him. To trust him. To love him like she had loved her brother. 

"There are going to be one legged races," Mito says diplomatically from behind her mouth. "You should enter one with Touka. I'm sure that'd win you some favors with your little hail storm."

Tobirama sniffs at that and puts some of his curry into his mouth. A one legged  _anything_ with Touka was probably a bad idea. Not because the woman lacked grace, or because she was competitive, but because she was the most likely to shout the story from the rooftops when they returned to Fire Country. 

"Oh don't worry," Mito adds a beat later. "I'm sure there are other ways you've already impressed him."

She jerks her head towards the tents where the Tatsumaki and Suoh families are sitting cheerfully under the same tent. The new mothers are chattering with each other, while the fathers bluster over their wives and children. 

The Unarigoe were charged with setting up sturdy tents that their namesake storms could not topple, them and the Tatsumaki both. But because the Tatsumaki were celebrating their new clan member, the duty fell mostly on the Unarigoe. 

Mito had seen Tobirama help pitch the bright green tent, hammering posts into the ground and tugging on rope until it stood proud against the wind. She had also seen Ryo watch Tobirama pitch the bright green tent. 

"I'm sure I have no idea what you're talking about," Tobirama says.

Mito looks at him for a moment, and knows that now's the time to drop the topic. It isn't a moment too soon, because Touka is bounding up to them having finished her meal. 

"Tobirama," she greets, a wide grin on her face. "There's a knife throwing competition."

Her eyes are glittering with excitement, like a child. Mito wonders how rarely they must be allowed to have such moments of unbridled joy. She feels acutely sorry for her cousins. She knows it will be difficult for them to return to war when they leave Uzushio. It has nearly been a month. 

Selfishly, Mito wonders how she will react to living under war time conditions. She has not been spoiled by Uzushio's peace. For as long as she's been alive and longer, her people have had spies on the mainland and elsewhere. Uzushio has always trained its shinobi to be prepared for the day that the war may breach their borders. 

But she doesn't want to leave this place of softness. When she looks around her, to the children laughing and shoveling food into their mouths, to the adults splashing in the sea, to the families welcoming the newest additions to the island, Mito's heart thumps in her chest. She cannot leave this behind. Cannot leave her people, her way of life behind. And yet she must. 

"You coming?" 

She blinks, looking at Tobirama who is waiting expectantly for her reply. His face isn't cruel or unkind; he seems to know that her mind has been elsewhere, and that his voice has only just guided her back to the present. 

"I think I'll stay on the beach," she replies. 

Concern flickers over Touka's features, but Tobirama nods and leads his Senju cousin away. He understands, and Mito is grateful for it. 

She may not be leaving Uzushio today, but every day was one step closer to the moment she would step off of the island unsure of when she would come back. Tobirama, Touka, Ginjirou; they were good people, good cousins.

The stories they told of Hashirama were nice ones. Less about his battle prowess, but more about his warm heart, his susceptibility to pranks, and how excited he got whenever the first flowers of spring began to bloom. The portraits she had received of him painted him as an attractive man, long haired and noble chinned.

Tobirama had assured her that his brother wouldn't prevent Mito from returning to Uzushio at her leisure to visit her parents and her island full of cousins. But the Senju elders were much more severe than the ones on Uzushio. Even if Hashirama gave his wife free reign to do as she pleased, the elders of a clan that had only a handful of years ago allowed kunoichi into their ranks were not the elders that would enjoy their clan head's wife traveling across the country at her will. 

So Mito finds a sunny patch of sand to sit on, and tucks her feet beneath herself. She watches the children shriek, and the adults laugh. She watches the tide roll in and out. She eats her curry and rice, and tries to remember the way the spices burn her tongue in a harsh, but sweet way. 

She tries to remember Uzushio as it is right now. Raucous and joyful, uninhibited as the tides that surround it. 

* * *

Night falls and there are fireworks ahead and Sakura is shaking like a leaf in a storm.

It's too loud. It's too bright. The Nobi are in charge of the fires, and so they are the ones who light them, but Sakura cannot make herself move. Cannot force one foot in front of the other. 

The firecrackers were easy to handle. Their popping sounds reminded her of her own childhood. She could laugh at them, could shrug off the noise. But the sparklers looked too much like Chidori, like Raikiri tucked in the palms of children that had never known war. 

Obito's eye in her skull is straining at the sound of the fireworks going off overhead. She is struck by a memory of a bomb detonating and a boulder and running too fast to shove Bakashi out of the way because even though he loved Rin first, she loved Kakashi just as much. In a way that confused him, but in a way she couldn't ignore. 

When the lights go off overhead, she can't enjoy them. They make her breath come short in her lungs. They make her quiver, desperate to get out, get away, to defend. But there is nothing to defend from. She is not being attacked by anything other than her memories. 

Kurama tries. He mutters soothing words in her mind, but Sakura can't stand to hear him too over the din in her head that Obito's memories are making. 

She bolts as fast as she can back into Uzushio proper, barefoot and panicking. She huddles herself in a small alley, desperate to find a quiet space that's closed in on as many sides as she can manage. She can defend herself here. She can count birthdays. She begins out of order, snagging Lee's and Chouji's from her mind, then Shikamaru and Kiba's. They rattle around her skull in an attempt to soothe her, but it doesn't work until she starts muttering aloud. 

And what a sight she must make, holding onto herself, heaving and shuddering and muttering nonsense underneath her breath while the island that has offered her refuge is celebrating only a short walk away. 

The noise of the fireworks picks up from a dull roar to a loud one, and it mimics the sound an Iwa shinobi Sakura had known in the war had made when she threw an armful of explosives into the belly of a Zetsu, sacrificing her arm to buy the rest of them a fraction more time. 

The sound of the fireworks is drowned out by the loud cheering of the islanders assembled to watch the display. Sakura places her head between her knees and tries to breathe through the cacophony. 

Dully, she can hear her false name being called. Someone is looking for her. She masks her chakra to the size of a minnow, and huddles further back into the alley. She does not want to be seen like this. If she shows such weakness in front of anyone other than her clan head, her chances of being sent to war will slim to nothing.

Minako can watch her weep for her parents, but no one can see her shiver at a fireworks display. No one. 

She stays there for as long as she dares, counting birthdays aloud and trying to fit them into order. She manages to sort out all of the Konoha Twelve in birth order before her heart begins to settle in her chest. She breathes slowly, rocking herself for the added comfort. What would her shishou say about her now?

What would Naruto say? He had thought she was the best person for this mission. And here she is, only a few months in and already cracking at the seams like the child she had been on the Wave mission. 

What would Sasuke think? He had likely watched Naruto die in the same way Sakura had heard it. What would he tell her if he could see her now, cowering and weeping when he was the last of them in their timeline still fighting?

She slaps herself. Once, and then a second time. A third time for good measure until she feels a little bit of blood in her mouth from the force of her self inflicted blows. 

"Pull it together," she demands of herself. Times like these, she wishes she still had Inner around.

The split personality had been absorbed back into her subconscious when the war dragged on for the first year. Sakura couldn't handle spending moments outside of herself, and the repeated trauma of losing people she loved just made Inner coalesce into who she was. She needed the extra battle instinct, the extra ruthlessness, the extra bloodlust to survive. 

Now, even with Kurama in her head to keep her company, Sakura feels alone. 

She forces herself to stand. Even if she does not make it back to the beach, she can make it back to the Nobi compound. She'll undress and bathe, and she will go to sleep early. And if anyone asks where she has been, she will tell them she had a headache and ducked away because the fireworks made it worse. 

She steps out of the alley and turns, only to be met by the princess of Uzushio. 

Mito's hair is down, over her shoulders and slipping into her eyes. She's barefoot herself, and clearly rumpled from a day of celebration. Her dark eyes are bright and concerned. 

"Tsubaki," she says, only a little out of breath. 

"Mito-sama."

She has to force the words out of her mouth from behind her teeth. She doesn't want to speak anything other than birthdays and excuses. She wants to rest. 

"We've been looking for you," Mito continues. "You disappeared. Hikaru was worried. The fireworks - I'm sorry. We didn't know."

Sakura wonders what exactly shinobi this far in the past know about PTSD. About grief and mourning and healing being staggered, uneven steps that sometimes landed you right back where you started or further back than where you took your initial steps in the first place. 

Konoha had suffered from having poorly healed shinobi leading her since the Shodaime himself. A bunch of war veterans trying to lead a nation into peace had only resulted in more wars, fratricides, and genocides than strictly necessary by any village's parameters. 

But Uzushio sent out and brought back spies. They clearly prided themselves on having a supportive, loving community. Minako had looked at Sakura and clocked her grief like it was something worn on Sakura's shoulders. Because to Uzushio shinobi, it was. 

"It's fine," she says. 

It's the wrong thing. Mito's gaze is just as concerned, just as sad, and only a little bit sympathetic. This isn't something she knows how to deal with. Sakura wants to turn tail and lick her wounds in peace. 

"If you'll excuse me, Mito-sama -,"

"Nobi-san," Mito says, using her princess voice.

It's the one she used on Sakura the first day they met. Cold, firm, unyielding. It worms its way through Sakura and touches something at her core. She recognizes that tone. It was one her shishou used, one Kakashi used when he was a general, one Shikaku, and Inoichi had used as well. The voice of a commanding officer demanding something of their subordinate, and knowing they will not be denied. 

It's support that Sakura hadn't even known she needed. She clings to it like a lifeline. 

"Come with me," Mito says. 

She turns around, and without waiting, Sakura follows, feeling helpless but afloat. 

Mito leads her across the island and through the front gates of the Uzumaki clan compound. She leads her past the houses, past the Storm Council meeting room, to a small glenn, shaded from the world by trees with low hanging branches. It overlooks a small pool of water, still and reflecting moonlight from where it slips through the tree branches. 

Over the pool is a small bridge, artfully made and clearly older than anything else on the property. Mito leads her up onto it, without once looking at her. 

"Sit, Nobi-san," Mito says. 

Sakura sits. She sticks her legs through the slats of the bridge and lets her bare feet dangle close to the water. 

It's quiet here. Blessedly quiet. The water is still and the tree branches do not sway in the wind. The beach, the fireworks, the revelry; they are all incredibly far away. 

It's closed in on all sides, it's shaded, it's quiet, and it's safe. Sakura heaves a sigh of relief. She will suffer the indignity of allowing Mito to see her in such a way later. She had done her best to be a good Uzushio shinobi by teaching their princess the Byakugō years before she would have developed it herself. She didn't see Mito as a friend as much as an ally, or a means to an end. A pawn that Sakura needed to be careful with playing because if she played poorly, the peaceful future all of her comrades had died for would be for nothing. 

So she kept distance. She allowed herself teasing friendships with other Uzushio shinobi, because they were inconsequential. The only ones among them to make an impact on the history of the elemental nations were Mito and her father. So they were the ones that Sakura had to be careful with. 

And now here she is, defying her own logic, and getting close to someone she should have kept space between. She feels foolish. Running her own plans over in her mind, altering them as she goes and discovers something new or different, and then sometimes back tracking because it doesn't work out the way she's hoping it will. 

Senju Tobirama was supposed to learn fuinjutsu in Uzushio, not have a crush on one of their shinobi. Uzumaki Mito was supposed to marry Senju Hashirama and be the first Kyuubi jinchuuriki; so far, Sakura had more or less fucked up half of that history. She wasn't  _supposed_ to teach Tobirama anything, wasn't supposed to find him clever or interesting or funny.

She was supposed to go back in time, destroy the Gedo Mazo, destroy the Zetsus, and then - 

Who knew what would happen after her tasks were complete? She hadn't thought that far ahead in advance. In the back of her mind, she had considered suicide, and hoped that she would meet Ino in the Pure Land, if that was how the place worked. 

Now she's off course. She cares about Uzushio, she wants to change the world from the comfort of the island, she wants to make sure the Kiri genocides never happen. It was already dangerous to care about something. 

"I have cousins who've come back from Fire Country afraid of fireworks," Mito says, interrupting the silence. 

Sakura's breath catches, and she stares forward. 

"Or even things that seem sillier. They don't like using chopsticks anymore. They can't stand the smell of cooking meat, or flowers."

She doesn't look at Mito, and Mito doesn't look at her. 

"Uzushio shinobi are noncombatants. Spies. They are supposed to watch, but they aren't always able to keep themselves from engaging."

Mito takes a heavy breath, the kind that Sakura knows intimately. The kind you take before a confession, before you say something that is going to rip your heart out of your chest to be placed, still beating, still bleeding, in between someone else's hands. 

"My older brother Yashiro came back like that," she murmurs. 

Sakura balks. 

There was no history of Uzumaki Mito having an older brother. Every record stated that she was an only child. That was why her marriage to Senju Hashirama had been so important. Uzushio had offered its only direct Uzumaki descendant of their founder to their distant cousins in Fire Country. 

"War changed him," Mito says. "He had seen things he couldn't recount. Things that followed him into sleep. That haunted him."

Sakura thinks of Kakashi, hounded by his ghosts since he was a child, walking in on the White Fang's corpse. She thinks of Tsunade, and how she lost her parents, her brother, and then the only man she ever loved. War had teeth, and it was always hungry. 

"He killed himself when I was twelve," Mito says, voice resolute through its softness. 

The air goes out of Sakura. She turns to the princess of Uzushio only to find that Mito's eyes have been on her this entire time. 

"Since his death, we have not lost a single Uzushio shinobi to despair," Mito says firmly. "We will not lose you, Tsubaki. You are ours, and Uzushio takes care of its own."

Losing the firstborn son of the Uzumaki had to have rocked the island like nothing else. Uzushio was a place where everyone was 'cousin' regardless of blood. They were family because they, together,  _were_ Uzushio. 

The man who was supposed to lead their nation when his father died - that man taking his own life had to have torn Uzushio apart. Everyone was losing a nephew, a brother, a son, a  _cousin._

"I'm sorry for your loss," Sakura whispers, unsure of what else to say. 

Her apologies fall off Mito's shoulders like her red hair. 

"You are  _ours_ , Tsubaki," Mito presses. "Not Fire Country's. Not no one's. You're not a wanderer anymore. You don't have to face the burdens of your past alone."

It makes her want to laugh. Sakura is the only person who could possibly shoulder the burdens of the world she knows. She's the only person who remembers it.

Mito reaches out and lays her dainty hand on Sakura's wrist. Sakura flinches visibly, but Mito's touch is firm. Her palm is calloused and warm. She squeezes Sakura's wrist with a gentle intensity. 

"You're Uzushio, Tsubaki," Mito says. "You are a Nobi, and you tend to our fires."

Sakura swallows around the excuse that's bubbling in her throat. That she's a Haruno. That her family tended no fires, but gardens. That they were immovable as solid rock, unforgiving as landslides, and soft as spring flowers. That the way Sakura scoops earth in her hand and tugs water from the sky are because of her earth and water blood, inherited from her parents, and their parents before them. 

She is not made of fire and lightning. She is not Uzushio. She is Konohagakure. She is leaves twisting in spring breezes, and summers hot enough to fry eggs on the street. 

The Konoha she knows does not exist yet, may never exist, has already been destroyed. There is nothing for her to come home to. Her name is false as she is. She wants to tell Mito the truth, if only to stop her from looking at Sakura like she is someone to be helped, to be saved, to be  _cared_ about. 

Tenten had looked at her that way. Her boys had looked at her that way. Ino had looked at her that way. 

And the look in Mito's eyes is one that Sakura cannot meet without wanting to weep, and so she doesn't. 

"You eat our food," Mito continues, sliding her hand down Sakura's wrist until she holds her hand.

Sakura lets her fold their fingers together, squeezes her eyes shut and tries to remember what it is like to have such easy affection, such familiarity. Wasn't Mito calling her 'Tsubaki-san' only yesterday? Why the familiarity, the closeness, the warmth? 

 _'Because you need it,'_ whispers Kurama, traitorous as Sakura's thundering heart. 

"You speak our languages," Mito says, slowly rubbing her thumb over Sakura's knuckle. "You fight like we do. You teach and have begun to learn fuinjutsu."

She chuckles then, and the sound makes Sakura's gaze flicker to her. Mito is looking out over the clear water with a little smirk on her face.

"You propose the way we do."

It's enough to make Sakura's jaw drop. Mito peeks at her through her curtain of red hair, and the expression on Sakura's face must be a sight to behold, because Mito bursts into laughter. 

Sakura has never seen the princess of Uzushio laugh. Smile, smirk, grimace, frown, or remain neutral in literally any situation, yes. But not a laugh. Not a full throated, deep belly laugh that drags tears to the edges of her eyes. 

In the almost dark, in the near perfect quiet punctuated by her clear laughter, Mito is beautiful. 

It's a thought that Sakura throat punches as soon as it arises in her mind. She doesn't have time to beat it further back into submission, because Mito's laughter has begun to die into light chuckles. She still hasn't let go of Sakura's hand. 

"My cousin, Tobirama," Mito says, explaining. "He asked you for help with his Hiraishin."

Sakura nods dumbly. 

"On Uzushio, when a couple is married, the first thing they do is collaborate on fuinjutsu for their home together," she says. 

She kicks her legs out between the rungs of the bridge, swinging them girlishly. 

"So you skipped marriage and went right to the honeymoon," Mito adds with good humor. "You move fast, Tsubaki. My cousin's a catch."

She knows it's meant to make her laugh, but it only makes her think of Ino. 

"I used to be married," she blurts. 

She says it because it's the only thing she can say. Konoha isn't real, her parents aren't real, Naruto and Sasuke aren't real; they aren't places to go home to anymore, they aren't places she can retrace her steps to, not places she can belong. 

But the scar on Sakura's scalp is still there beneath her longer hair, and every time she touches it, the knotted tissue tethers her to Ino more than any wedding band could. 

Mito's laugh slides off her face, humor fading into quiet. 

"I didn't know," she says, picking her words carefully after a measured silence. 

Sakura shakes her head. 

"I didn't tell anyone," Sakura replies. "Ryo didn't ask. When I was still in the cells, he didn't ask. It never came up."

Mito nods. Sakura can feel Mito's gaze, how she's waiting for her to provide more information, to talk it out, to do anything. Sakura squeezes the hand in hers, and is absurdly angry that the fit is wrong. Ino had broken her pinky in their genin days, and it had healed crooked. Mito's fist isn't slender enough, her nails cut square instead of oval. 

Through the minute fury at the wrongness of Mito's hand in hers, Sakura is grateful that it isn't Ino's. That she isn't holding onto air and imagining her wife's warmth in her palm. That she isn't chasing shadows. 

She's grateful and enraged at being grounded so. 

"She died," Sakura says, like plucking a knife from her flesh. "She died buying us time to escape. We were under attack. Bandits."

Sakura shuts her eyes and tries not to see Ino's sky blue one's in her memory. She tries so hard it hurts. 

"I'm sorry, Tsubaki."

Sakura blinks. That's something she's never heard. Before the war, maybe. It was polite to apologize when someone lost a person they cared about. But when the body count began to stack up and the dead were better burned than buried, it was a matter of destroying their body and moving on before they, too, were dragged to the rabbit goddess.

No one had apologized when her parents died. When Kakashi died. When Lee and Chouji and Obito and Tenten and Temari and the thousands on thousands of others. Ryo had apologized, those many days ago, for her 'loss'. Her parents. And again for Naruto and Sasuke. They were clumped together in the days that he had spent with her. He had apologized for the lump sum loss of everyone she had ever cared about.

But he hadn't known about Ino. And so he hadn't apologized for her.

Sakura takes in one slow breath and then another. From a secret place, buried so deeply within her she isn't sure of where it begins or ends, Sakura draws a measure of strength.

She opens her eyes and looks into Uzumaki Mito's beautiful face.

Her expression is open, guileless. Maybe a little sad, or expectant. Accepting. Sakura can feel the tears burning at the edges of her eyes as she squeezes the hand that is not Ino's, looks into grey eyes that should be blue. She breathes past it all.

"Thank you," Sakura says, almost choking with the weight of it. "Thank you, Mito-sama."

Mito holds Sakura's hand in both of her own. 

"Mito," she says. "Just Mito."

Sakura nods, and wants to crawl into the space that her hand creates between Mito's two palms. She wants to lay there forever, and rest. 

"Mito," Sakura says, breathing easy around the name. 

* * *

The mouth against is throat is a hot one, that kisses a trail along his collarbone and up behind his ear. The teeth on his earlobe nip playfully, sweetly, and the fingers that tease his nipple are curious. 

Tobirama moans low in his throat and turns his face to catch Ryo's mouth as his breath ghosts against Tobirama's cheek. Ryo bites at his lip, and Tobirama holds the back of Ryo's head, a fistful of bright hair slipping between his fingers. Ryo presses his thigh between Tobirama's, pushing upwards for an amount of friction that is woefully inadequate. 

It's improper. His mind should be elsewhere. He's on Uzushio to learn fuinjutsu, to scope out Mito to make sure she's an appropriate match for Hashirama, and perhaps to find a wife for himself. He shouldn't be necking in Ryo's bedroom. He has responsibilities. 

Ryo slides the flat of his nail against Tobirama's nipple and he keens into his mouth. He should be embarrassed at the amount of noise he's making, like a common tart or one of the camp women that wanders from tent to tent in search of pay. But Tobirama can't remember the last time he'd been touched with intention, and it's easy to let sound tumble from his mouth into Ryo's when he isn't sure if the next man that touches him will be one that wants him dead. 

He thinks of Madara in spite of himself. Thinks of when they were children, how Hashirama would sneak off to talk with his friend while Tobirama would follow, lying on his brother's behalf even before Butsuma realized where exactly his firstborn was going. 

He thinks of the battlefield, of throwing himself in the way of Madara's sword to spare his brother, of beating back Madara with everything he had to buy Hashirama and his clansmen more time. He is reminded of the first time they disarmed each other and fell into a fist fight. How he had pinned Madara with what little strength he had left. How the Uchiha had writhed in rage beneath him.

Their eyes catching in the sweltering day. They both knew Tobirama wouldn't kill him. Could not, for his brother's sake. How time had slowed, sweat curling down over their faces, sticking clothes to their backs, their armpits, and the backs of their knees. They hadn't moved for two whole minutes; several lifetimes in a battle between an Uchiha and a Senju. 

The heat, pressing in on all sides. The realization. Madara's rage at his body's betrayal of him. Tobirama's shame at his own returned interest. The still moments broken by Hashirama's ragged voice, shouting for reinforcements. 

Tobirama scrambled off of Madara then. The Senju came to retrieve Tobirama, and the Uchiha for Madara. Subtly, things had changed between them from that point on. Hashirama noticed, and never let Tobirama get close enough to Madara for it to happen again. 

They still watched each other, though. Across battlefields before the fighting began. Tobirama could pick out Madara's chakra from his army's in an instant. It had been a talent garnered initially to protect his brother. Now it was - something different. He isn't sure of what exactly it is yet. 

He breaks his kiss with Ryo to bite down at the juncture of his shoulder and throat, hard enough to make the man hiss. Then Tobirama wipes his tongue over the bite, sucking at it until it begins to bruise. Ryo huffs out a laugh as Tobirama bites his way down Ryo's chest, biting at exposed flesh and down around covered skin where his shirt falls. 

Tobirama goes to his knees, and Ryo's hands fist immediately in Tobirama's white hair. He mouths at the line of Ryo's cock, straining against his pale blue pants, and Ryo curses. 

He doesn't think of anything as he tugs down the waist of Ryo's pants, and licks way from base to tip. He tastes the salt of Ryo's precum and takes the tip into his mouth, swiping his tongue around the sensitive skin. He uses one hand to grasp Ryo's ass, the other to work his shaft as he presses forward, hollowing his cheeks and sucking as he goes. 

Ryo bucks into his mouth as Tobirama swallows around him. Tobirama takes his time, looking up to see Ryo staring down at him, unraveling as Tobirama curls his wrist and pumps Ryo's cock in his hand. Tobirama's hand shifts downwards, strokes becoming faster as his head bobs lower. He slides all of Ryo's cock into his mouth, weight heavy on his tongue. He only has to gently drag his fingernails over Ryo's balls before he's coming down Tobirama's throat. 

He swallows on instinct. He usually shares a tent with Hashirama, and it is better if the camp men leave no trace of themselves when they go. They're not an indulgence that Tobirama allows himself. Only on days when he is breaths away from engaging Madara and is denied. Only when he manages to land a glancing blow that Hashirama interrupts, stepping in to finish the fight. Only when he wants a head of dark hair whining out his name. Only when he wants to watch a pair of black eyes flutter shut as he takes them a part, inch by inch, bite by bite. 

But Ryo's eyes are Uzushio bright, and his hair is like a sunrise, and guilt begins to gnaw at Tobirama like a dog with a bone. 

He tugs up Ryo's pants, covering him, and Ryo's hands loosen from his hair before leaving entirely. Tobirama stands, suddenly unsure of himself. It had been easy to get to this point. Now he feels oddly adrift. 

"Hey. Look at me." 

Ryo's eyes are soft. Uzushio soft. Uzushio kind. And a little wry. A little understanding. 

"I'm not expecting the moon here," he says. "Just a little fun, if you're up for it. And if you're not, if there's somebody else back home -,"

"There isn't."

It feels like a lie even though it isn't. 

Ryo nods at him, obviously not buying it. 

"Right," he says. "If you're not up for it, that's okay."

Tobirama shakes his head, fumbling for the genuine attraction that had tethered him to Ryo in the first place. He was a good man, an interesting one, an attractive one. He was capable and clever, two qualities that made anyone shine in Tobirama's eye. He had a little sister whom he loved dearly. He was loyal. 

But his hair is too bright and his eyes are not chips of blackness. 

"I am," Tobirama says, insisting. "I am up for it."

Ryo's gaze turns considering, and tenderly he places a hand on Tobirama's cheek, fingers playing lightly over the scar there. 

"I don't think you are," he replies. 

"Don't tell me what I want," Tobirama snaps. 

Immediately he regrets it. He's better disciplined than that. He has been all his life. 

Ryo seems completely unruffled by his sudden meanness. His fingers draw down low over Tobirama's jaw, down his chin. His hand lays heavily on Tobirama's clavicle, gaze heavy with intent. 

If Tobirama asks Ryo to leave him, he will. They both know that he will. 

"Then what do you want?" 

Tobirama swallows. It's the same as what he always wants when this happens. The same as with the camp men with their hair that wasn't quite dark enough, and their eyes that didn't shine red to memorize the way Tobirama swallowed around them, fucked slowly, meanly, desperately into them. 

"To forget."

To remember. 

Ryo licks his way into Tobirama's mouth, and for the rest of the night, Tobirama does.

* * *

Tobirama has been gone for a month and Hashirama doesn't like it.

He's never spent this long without his younger brother. And perhaps there is a measure of codependency fueling his hysteria, but Hashirama isn't so sure. The Uchiha have been brought to a standstill with the Senju's new fuinjutsu supplementing their fighting style. Hashirama can remember the look on Madara's face when he activated the flash bomb he slammed onto the earth.

Sharingan eyes couldn't copy fuinjutsu, especially not when the seals were written to burn themselves out after one use. The chakra depletion seals managed to leave hideous burn scars when attached to bare skin; that was something else the Uchiha weren't expecting.

The element of surprise was with the Senju. It was good news. But it wasn't enough. Innovative battle techniques were only good as long as the people you were using them against couldn't adapt. The Uchiha weren't still warring with the Senju for nothing; in a good couple of weeks time, they'd figure out something. Sage only knew what.

The elders don't like that Tobirama is gone so long either. He is the second born son of Senju Butsuma. He is a skilled fighter, an inventor of ninjutsu, and a weathered general, though he is only twenty-two. And he is the visibly meaner of the two brothers. Hashirama is called a God of Shinobi, but Tobirama is the one whose name is rarely even whispered. They were different kinds of dangerous. Hashirama would always engage Madara in a fight; there was no cause for other Uchiha to worry about facing the Senju's firstborn son. 

But Tobirama would mow down any enemy combatant that stepped into his path. Hashirama fought Madara to keep from harming his Uchiha clansmen. Tobirama fought the Uchiha to keep them away from Hashirama.

The elders know that Tobirama's absence from the battlefield will be noticed, and they are itching to get him back onto the front lines. Hashirama just wants to know his brother is safe.

Then there is a tug at his chakra, and a pale pink salamander pops into existence on his forehead. Hashirama blinks and reaches up to pull the creature off by the tail.

"Tsui-san," he breathes, a relieved smile coming onto his face.

The salamander licks her lips, beaming at him. 

"Hashirama-kun!" she chirps. 

He lets her down onto his palm and she swipes her tail back and forth as she settles on him. Tsui had been the first of the salamander clan that Hashirama had gotten to know. She was one of the youngest, and was of a sunny disposition. She was a good messenger, faster than her brothers. Tight lipped and serious while some of the others were silly. 

Ginjirou and Hashirama both having a summoning contract with the salamanders had come in handy several times when it came to delivering messages about regiment sizes and casualties in the heat of battle. Now more than ever, he is grateful that these slimy little creatures are his allies. 

"What news, Tsui-san?"

She stretches out her front and back legs, and lets out a chirp. Hashirama has to shut his eyes to listen. Hidden beneath the layers of sound is Ginjirou's voice, relaying days upon days worth of information. 

A safe arrival. A warm welcome with the Uzumaki, and the other clans of Uzushio. Detailed analyses of the seven clans, and how the civilian population seems to help and not hinder the shinobi. The fuinjutsu Tobirama is learning; how he is crafting his own with their cousins over his shoulder, guiding his hand. How he is crafting transportation seals, refining his Water Dragons, and beginning to craft ninjutsu the likes of which this world has never seen before. 

Uzumaki Mito. A severe girl. Warm hearted. Very much like Tobirama. They haven't seen her fight, but she moves like a dancer and a clever one at that. She has a political mind. She is devoted to her people. Tobirama thinks the match will be a good one. 

And a girl, a different one. A girl called Tsubaki. A war orphan, born of a vassal clan of the Senju. The last of her line, taken in by Uzushio. 

Then the logistics of the island, its main defenses, the massive seal it takes to leap there without a ship, and how imminent danger of light rains turning into furious gales can call up bubble like domes of chakra over the entirety of the island. 

Tsui closes her mouth. Hashirama sets her down on the ground to hunt for crickets in the compound. She will dismiss herself when she has eaten her fill. 

He isn't sure of what can be done about this Tsubaki woman, but if Tobirama thinks that Mito will make a good Senju, he trusts his brother's judgement. Hashirama leaves his private quarters to the modest house he built from chakra and oak for the elders. He enters unannounced, apologizing for the intrusion before he bows to them.

"I would like to formally send a response to Nobi Minako-sama's initial marriage proposal on behalf of Uzumaki Mito," he says. 

It isn't a request. The elders' eyes glitter with possibility.

"Please begin drafting a marriage contract so that we may send a return proposal to Uzushio within the week," Hashirama requests. 

Two of the elders balk, but one shakes her head, rubbing at her chin. 

"Speed may be an insult to the Uzumaki," she mutters, "but Butsuma's sons need heirs quickly."

She nods brusquely at Hashirama, taking charge where her contemporaries falter. He tries not to feel like a stud, being loaned out to whoever needs him at their leisure. He hopes this match will turn their gazes away from Tobirama. At least if Hashirama marries Mito, their union will be able to kill at least three birds with one stone. 

He tries not to think of the elders that had pushed Hashirama's own mother into having four sons that she hadn't been able to hold onto once they were too old to drink her milk any longer.

"We will have it drafted," the elder woman says, "and prepared within your deadline. If we have our way, the two of you will be married within the month."

A month. It seems so long to wait. So long to push back the Uchiha, so long to be without his brother. Hashirama bites back his displeasure and thanks his elders before beating his retreat. 

In his ear, the trees whisper that a squadron has just returned badly wounded, and he must see to his comrades. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i had to counterbalance mito having the time of her life with sakura emotionally dying inside.
> 
> i jumped right into the deep end of pining tobirama, didn't i. no idea if i did it effectively. he doesn't seem like the type to pine and yet….. i wanted him to pine. i feel like all his gruffness needs to be offset by some kind of vulnerability. and in this verse, that vulnerability is this attraction w madara that he has no idea how to handle in the context of a war he's been fighting since he was born. and here we are. ta da. 
> 
> this chapter was supposed to have more plot and less porn but sakura and mito needed A Moment and then tobirama also needed A Moment and here we are. we'll get back to your regularly plotted programming next chapter. 
> 
> thank you for reading xx


	9. Chapter 9

When the Senju elders affirm their interest in a reaffirmation of the old Uzumaki-Senju alliance through the marriage of Uzumaki Mito and Senju Hashirama, a meeting of the Storm Council is called. 

Mito's stomach feels as though it's going to fall out from her. She has known this day would come since her brother died, and it was known that regardless of which child Ashina _thought_ fit to lead the island, Mito was the only one left that could. She has known that she would have to marry a man for the sake of her people, to produce an heir of Uzumaki Masayo's blood, to pass along her lineage and the power to create and quell hurricanes as they saw fit. 

She had hoped that it would happen later rather than sooner, and closer to her own terms. But it has never been her choice. 

So she sits, with her spine erect just a little behind her father as the heads of the seven clans speak to each other about her future. Tobirama is there, given a place of honor on Ashina's other side, with Touka and Ginjirou just behind him. Even though he is some distance away from her, Mito is glad for his presence and for that of her guard. 

Along with her father's Handmaiden's Guard, Mito's are hidden in the walls and the ceiling, below the raised platform of the floor beneath them. She reaches out and feels for Rin's chakra, steady as it always is, and tries to calm her nerves. 

Her face is implacable because it must be. Because if she gives even an inch, if she gives so much as a twist of her lips to show her displeasure, it might mean the end of the Senju in Fire Country, and it would be a terrible blow to her parents. 

She knows her father would release her from this if he could. She knows her mother would not. 

"Sacrifice," Marishi had said, when Mito was eleven and first discovered the glory of other girls, "is necessary for survival."

Not a condemnation, never that. Marishi was too kind a mother, too loving. Not an instruction to hide, or to deny herself. But the knowledge that one day, Mito would not have the luxury to take a wife as civilians could, or as those who were not the heirs of their clans could.

It was doubtful that anyone would fault her for taking a mistress if she wanted one; many of the Uzumaki women had preferred women, and men had preferred men in their lineage. Taking a lawful-husband and a loving-wife and (vice versa) were understood concessions on the island. 

But in Fire Country, Mito might not ever have the luxury of finding a woman with whom she could spend the rest of her days. Who would love her keenly even though she would bear Hashirama's children, even though she would become the matriarch of the Senju. Their elders were far different than those of Uzushio; it was unlikely that they would even consider it acceptable for Mito to like women at all. 

Mito watches the clan heads discuss logistics. What and who ought to be sent with her as her bridal party. She feels Tobirama's eyes on her, and appreciates his sympathy. She wants to crawl backwards into her own skin and hide there for as long as possible. 

But she is a woman grown, and she is the last heir of Uzumaki Masayo, and this is her duty. 

She is grateful, she must be. At least her people do not speak of her as if she is not in the room, as if she is a piece of chattel to be bought and sold and bargained for. 

They ask her about her preferences, her opinions; how many Uzumaki shinobi ought to come with her, and what kind of fuinjutsu should she bring to welcome Hashirama into their culture, and what jewels should adorn her carriage, and what wedding gifts should she bring for her new clansmen, and what spices and sweets and recipes should she bring so that her people (and Mito herself) will not feel homesick?

Her mouth is dry from answering their questions, and her brow feels heavy with their firm gazes. Her fingers feel cramped from forming sign, and her eyes are tired from making sure they meet every pair that bears into her own. 

They do not look at her with pity. Only resolve. They trust that she knows her duty. They trust that she will not falter. 

She ought to be proud, that she has inspired such firm conviction within her people, her elders. These people have watched her grow up. They had seen Yashiro, when he was the one who sat at Ashina's elbow, and Mito was content to toddle in her older brother's shadow. They saw her take his seat when he was sent into Fire Country as a spy. 

They saw her clutching his body, shrieking for help when she found him in his own blood. 

All of them, they watched her armor herself, protect herself so that she could better serve her people. And they watch her still now, aware that she is capable of doing what they have all been training her to do. 

As soon as they leave the room, Mito will sequester herself in her quarters and she will vomit with the force of the anxiety that she has been keeping firmly under her heel for the entirety of this meeting. 

For now, she watches her elders, her clan heads, her cousins, her  _father_ prepare to send her into the unknown. 

"One hundred and fifty shinobi," Mineta says, rubbing at his chin. "That should be plenty, yes, Senju-kun?" 

Tobirama nods briskly, Mito can see it from the corner of her eye. 

"Enough to bolster our forces, yes, Raiu-sama," he replies. "Your fuinjutsu have already helped us push back our enemy into their own territory. One hundred and fifty men will help us end the conflict succinctly."

 _"Shinobi,"_ Hotaru signs decisively. 

Politely, Marishi leans into Tobirama's ear to help him translate. He is a talented man, but his sign is still rudimentary, and the Hisame sign too quickly for him to follow. 

 _"Our shinobi are not only men,"_ Hotaru continues.  _"If your elders will not have women, or those who are neither man nor woman, or those who are both, they will not have our shinobi."_

Tobirama nods as Marishi whispers into his ear, and with steady hands, he responds. 

"Excuse my mistake," he says as he signs. "You have my word that the Senju will accept all Uzushio shinobi as they are."

Or they will risk insulting their greatest potential new ally. No matter how the Senju feel about women in their ranks, they will take whatever help they can get if it means getting to Uzushio's fuinjutsu and its riches. 

"That leaves Mito-sama's Handmaiden's Guard as the final topic for debate," Nanami says, lighting her pipe with an easy way about her. 

"Yes," Ashina agrees, then turns his head to look at the head of the Nobi clan. "Minako."

"Ashina-sama," she replies. 

Behind her are Tsubaki and Hikaru both. Tsubaki, for her knowledge of Fire Country, and Hikaru because he has finally been named as the heir of the Nobi family. 

"There is no Nobi handmaiden on my daughter's guard," Ashina says. "You have long waited to fill the position because you have not thought any of your clansmen ready for such an obligation. But with Mito's impending marriage, I must insist that you name the Nobi handmaiden post haste. We cannot send her into foreign territory with an incomplete guard."

Minako smiles, her hands resting placidly on her knees. 

"Rest assured, Ashina-sama, I have chosen the Nobi handmaiden."

The answer is a surprise, even to her heir and ward behind her. Minako was of the youngest clan heads, with Nanami being just a handful of months older than her. Even she had named the Fubuki handmaiden for Mito's guard within the first handful of years of her reign as clan head. 

Minako had insisted that none of her clansmen were suited to the task. It made sense. The Nobi had ferocious tempers as a rule, and while they were fiercely loyal, they also had a habit of following in their namesake's steps, and lashing out on their own when they thought their judgment was best. 

They were difficult to control, to call to heel. It was no surprise that Minako had waited, had watched her clansmen to decide who would best serve the Uzumaki heir. 

And here, she had come to a decision without even remotely feeling the need to inform her peers.

"By all means, Minako," Nanami says, blowing a ring of smoke into the air. "Don't keep us waiting. Who have you chosen?"

Minako rolls her shoulders back, and tips her chin only the smallest inch up. It's a challenge to anyone who may contest her decision. Mito watches the movement with narrowed eyes, as do the rest of the Uzushio shinobi in the room. 

"I have chosen Nobi Tsubaki."

Tsubaki's green eye widens a fraction before returning to neutrality. 

It isn't unheard of, for wards of one of the seven clans to become a handmaiden. But Tsubaki was - she was different. She was Uzushio now, by all rights. Her Fire Country blood didn't matter. She had taught and had been taught fuinjutsu, she inspired and helped develop the form. She had been accepted as a ward into one of the seven clans. By all means, she was Uzushio. 

But her nomination makes Mito's chest feel tight. 

Tsubaki had been distant since the festival night, when Hikaru had noticed that his older sister had gone missing. He had started to look for her on his own, and had run into Mito and Utano, washing sand off their feet in a public fountain. They had split up with plans to meet back at the fountain in five minutes if none of them had found Tsubaki by then, to organize a larger search. 

Mito had found her, shaking like a taut string just played. Her green eye had been wide and haunted. She had looked terribly like Yashiro had, the nights that Mito had found him wandering the compound, trying to find ghosts he had left in Fire Country. 

She hadn't known where else to take Tsubaki but to the shrine. It was a place of great peace, the place where Uzumaki Masayo had stood when she used her chakra to tame a hurricane. The water beneath the little bridge was that same water of Masayo's suiton, imbued still with her chakra, with her spirit.

She had taken Yashiro there, and it had helped him for a while. It seemed to have helped Tsubaki in the same way. 

Except she hadn't sought Mito out afterwards, not for anything. There were the perfunctory checks on the seal at Mito's clavicle, to make sure it was progressing safely. But that was the only way Tsubaki would initiate contact. 

Mito had attempted a handful of times (successfully, too) to teach Tsubaki the chakra expelling seal Mito had crafted, inspired by Tsubaki's technique in her first spar with Utano. But once she had mastered its use in friendly spars with Mito's guard and with Hikaru, those meetings too, petered off into nothing. 

Tobirama spent lots of time in the Nobi compound, his head bent together with Tsubaki's, working on his Hiraishin. And though Mito knew Tobirama valued her advice, the way Tsubaki would refuse to look her in the eye (preferring her eyebrows, or the center of her forehead instead) made Mito feel like an intruder.

She didn't know what she had done to offend her so. She had only tried to help. 

"Maybe," Momo had said about it, running a brush through Mito's hair, "maybe it's frightened her, that you've seen that side of her. And now she's retreating because she doesn't want you to see it again."

"She's injured," Kikue agreed, "and wants to lick her wounds by herself."

But solitary healing had killed her brother, and Mito doesn't know if leaving Tsubaki be is a good idea or not. On Uzushio, everyone is blood and ink and water. That is what makes them such a tightly knit community. And Tsubaki had been welcomed into it, had appeared to allow herself become a part of it, until Mito had seen too much. 

"Are you of sound mind?" Yui asks.

Minako makes a motion to her son, and Hikaru startles. He then dives his hands into his kimono, reaching for a piece of paper. When he gives it to his mother, Minako bites the skin of her thumb and begins writing a seal on it. 

"I, Nobi Minako, of sound mind, assure you that I am under no illusion, nor have I been coerced into making this decision."

They watch as she pulses chakra into the truth seal, and her blood turns blue with the validity of her statement. She holds up the paper so that all can see. Mito bites her cheek. 

"I witness your nomination," Nanami says, signing as she does, and the rest of the elders repeat her words and follow suit. 

"I affirm your nomination of Nobi Tsubaki," Ashina says. Then, he raps his knuckles against the floor and says, "Tomoyo."

With a shushin whose speed Mito desparetly envies, Nobi Tomoyo appears in a pocket of displaced air that smells like hot ash. She is a tall imposing woman, with a head of blonde hair pulled back into two braids, and eyes pink as Tsubaki's hair. She is dressed in Nobi purple, a chokuto at her hip and a toothpick in her mouth. 

No one in the room save for the Senju and Tsubaki flinch for weapons when the woman appears. 

"About time, little sister," she says, her eyes resting easily on Minako. "I was beginning to think you'd never decide."

Minako smirks a little bit, giving a little shrug of her shoulders. 

"What can I say, ane-ue?" she asks. "I wanted to pick someone who was even half as good as you."

Tomoyo chuckles at that, letting her hand rest easy on her chokuto. 

"Half?" she asks, her voice a throaty rumble. "How sweet."

Nobi Tomoyo had been chosen to be the Nobi handmaiden by her mother, and Minako had been chosen as the clan heir when they were in their early teens. Most clan heads preferred to pick shinobi from outside their immediate families, because that was where they chose their heirs. But the Nobi, like the Tatsumaki, and the Fubuki, were the few families that chose their Handmaidens and their heirs from their direct bloodline. 

Which said quite a bit about the way Minako felt about Tsubaki. 

"A pleasure to meet you, Tsubaki-chan," Tomoyo says, nodding at the girl. 

"The pleasure is mine, Tomoyo-san," Tsubaki replies. 

"Ashina-sama," Tomoyo says, turning her head to see the man she has guarded since she was a young girl. "I am ready whenever young Tsubaki is."

Ashina nods, though doesn't yet rise to his feet. 

"Minako," he says, a light smile on his lips. "Have you informed your ward of how the nomination process for a position on the Handmaiden's Guard works?"

"Of course not," Minako replies. 

It sends a light chuckle around the room; nominations for the Handmaiden's Guard were always made to surprise those nominated. It gave the person a chance to plead their case against their nomination in front of all of the clan heads, and it was also an honor only to be bestowed in private, announced with the introduction of the new handmaiden into the Guard. 

"The nomination has been witnessed and confirmed," Ashina says, signing as he does so that all will understand him. His eyes settle on Tsubaki, who has not so much as blinked since Tomoyo appeared in the room. "Do you accept your nomination?"

"I do."

She doesn't even wait to answer. 

If Mito had even a thimble's worth less control over herself, her jaw might drop. She hadn't thought - A position on the Handmaiden's Guard was a high honor, and one not easily attained. It was not closed to shinobi outside of the clans, but the training that came from being of one of the clans made access easier. 

But Tsubaki is not clanless. Even before she was a Nobi, she was a vassal of the Senju, if name if not by action. Of course she is qualified. 

It doesn't exactly explain why she's agreed to take on the job. 

"To become the Nobi handmaiden for Mito's guard, you must engage the current Nobi handmaiden in armed combat to prove your strength."

Ashina's words don't make Tsubaki balk. Rather, she looks to her clan head. 

The smell of Nanami's smoke would threaten to make Mito dizzy if she hadn't gotten used to it when she was a child. Now, she keeps her fists deceptively loose on her knees, and tries to wonder what on earth would possess suddenly distant Tsubaki to take on a vow to protect Mito with her life, for as long as they both lived. 

"If you think I am suitable for this task, Minako-sama, I would be honored to do it," Tsubaki says. 

Minako looks at her ward, eyeing her up and down. She reaches out, cupping Tsubaki's cheek, and then giving it an affectionate pat. 

"I know where your heart is Tsubaki," Minako says. "I have seen it since you came to us. You want to serve your people, and this is how you will."

It seems to be the confirmation that Tsubaki needs, because she gives a brisk nod before she rises to her feet. 

"Tomoyo-san, Ashina-sama," she says. "I am ready."

* * *

It'll get her onto the mainland, and she can finally _do_ what she had come back here in the first place to do. She had wasted months, getting soft, being kind, when she had been war forged. And now, to war she would return. 

Sakura steps outside of the Storm Council room, following Tomoyo and Ashina. The fight needed to be witnessed by all sitting clan heads and their heirs. The Senju followed at a respectful distance, and kept close to the Uzumaki. Hikaru kept to his mother's side, and Sakura could feel his eyes on the back of her neck. 

She turns her head over her shoulder to give him a wink. It doesn't make him look any less nervous. 

Tomoyo is in her forties, an achievement gained in part by living in an isolated nation and partially because she was just that good. She walks the way Tsunade walked, the way Jiraiya and Mei walked, with the easy assurance of someone who had been battle tested, and who had survived. Who carried the weight of their trauma in a way that did not constantly threaten to snap them in two. 

They reach a clearing in the Uzumaki compound, and the clan heads form a circle around Sakura and Tomoyo. She watches carefully from the corner of her eye, just to see how much distance they'll be giving her. 

 _'This is some test,'_ she thinks, only to hear Kurama rumble a laugh in response. 

 _'They'll get closer through the fight,'_ he says.  _'I remember seeing these from Mito's memories. They'll get closer to test your precision.'_

Because protecting someone against an attack was as the perfect combination of offensive and defensive techniques. It wouldn't do to gut your attacker if you also managed to cut your charge in the same blow. Sakura almost wants to laugh. That was a lesson she had learned on that first mission to Wave, when she had hung back and the boys had run face first into a Kiri swordsman and his charge. 

"Until concession," Ashina says, his daughter and wife flanking him. 

Sakura looks back at Tomoyo to avoid Mito's gaze. A different problem for a different day. 

 _'Ugh,'_ Kurama rumbles.  _'And I thought Naruto's Uchiha was bad. He's got nothing on you.'_

She doesn't get the chance to tell the eons old being made of pure chakra trapped inside of her forehead to shut up, because Ashina calls the fight to begin. 

Sakura puts her fist up to her face, eyes wary on Tomoyo's chokuto and heads in. She's painfully aware of the seals still marking her arms, and wonders who will be the one to destroy the chakra coils within them if she goes too far. She hopes ( _hopes)_ that maybe a position on Mito's guard might be enough to get her arms unsealed. She looks a terrible amount like Orochimaru after the Sandaime took away his ability to perform ninjutsu. 

She supposes she's lucky then, that Uzushio only took away her ability to hurt them specifically. 

Tomoyo moves, blocking Sakura's blows without ever moving her hand from the hilt of her blade. The toothpick in her mouth does not wobble as she dodges, and she looks down at Sakura with a considering eye. 

She doesn't return a single hit. 

It reminds Sakura of her days training with Kakashi, before Naruto and Sasuke left, before she found Tsunade. With Tsunade, it was blocked or be concussed. With Kakashi, it was try to land a hit or you weren't allowed lunch. 

Tomoyo doesn't have porn in her face to distract herself from Sakura's attacks, but she moves in that same liquid way he had, an ease that Sakura lacks. She is used to drawn out, desperate fights. Ones wherein she has a spoonful of chakra to kill and heal in equal measure, and she must decide between saving a comrade's leg or decimating the creature that almost destroyed it. 

There is no grace to her movements. There is a hard, battle calm. One that prefers efficiency over beauty. The assurance of a kill over the aesthetic of it. 

She gets close, a kick that would knock Tomoyo back a good couple of feet. She sees Mito's eyes over her opponent's shoulder and pulls the hit at the last second. It gives Tomoyo a fraction of a second to turn her armored chest to the hit and take the blow. 

Pain lances up Sakura's foot all the way to her hip, a sharp, shocking pain the likes of which she hasn't felt since she was in her own time. She had learned long ago to dull her nerves to the point that only serious injuries on her own person would give her cause for pain. And the lack of war-like battle on Uzushio had allowed her to forget for a little while, what it had been like to physically hurt. 

Now, she drags her leg back and takes several steps back, dragging a palmful of healing charka over the length of it while she gets space between herself and Tomoyo. 

She narrows her eyes at Tomoyo's chest plate, heaving as she fixes the nearly destroyed bones in her foot.

 _'Fucking fuinjutsu,'_ she thinks. 

Seals to take in and redirect energy. She can't see the arrays clearly from here, but she can guess from her fucked up foot and the way the seals on Tomoyo's chest plate glow a light blue the cause of her suddenly broken foot.

_'Typical.'_

Sakura pulls herself up to her full height, testing her weight on the foot. She's fought with broken bones before, hidden her pain to herself for the sake of survival. But this is not a fight to the death and she does not need to employ such senseless sacrifice. 

"You're a war child," Tomoyo says, eyes narrowed from across the battlefield. "You can do better."

She uses her thumb to remove her chokuto the barest bit from its sheath. The Uzushio shinobi around them take one step in, closing the circle the smallest bit.

"Do not shame our family name by fighting poorly, Tsubaki," Tomoyo advises, grave despite the lightness of her tone. "Do not shame my sister for putting her faith in you."

Sakura sucks in an angry breath and doubles down.

Tomoyo's armor may have been able to repel taijutsu supplemented with chakra, but if her armor was working with the energy of a direct blow, it would have nothing against ninjutsu. Sakura darts in forward, keeping a careful eye on the woman's sword. Sakura had been a decent hand at kenjutsu because it was an art form that required no chakra. Tenten and Sasuke had taught her enough to keep her alive, but she has no sword of her own and she doubts her chances against Tomoyo's chokuto with a kunai.

She resorts to hand seals, barreling in towards her opponent before slamming her fist into the earth. The doton jutsu curves up against her like an old friend, and a mass of solid rock emerges from the earth to chase Tomoyo. 

The woman moves back like a dancer, taking easy steps away. She darts further back towards the Uzushio shinobi flanking them, forcing Sakura to alter the jutsu that follows her. The mass of rock darts past Mineta and Yui, who do not falter as the wind off of it touches their faces. 

Tomoyo leads Sakura's mound of agile earth on a merry chase until Sakura realizes the futility of the jutsu. Tomoyo is faster than Sakura can manipulate the jutsu, and there will be a strain on her chakra soon. It was a good way to at least tire the woman some and show off her precision work with ninjutsu, but there was little time for performance. This was a fight. 

Sakura ends the jutsu, and the displaced earth stays in the air as a complicated maze rising from the ground. Tomoyo leaps on top of it, some ten meters into the air, and looks down at Sakura with something a little satisfied in her face. 

"Good," she praises from her perch above her. "Now impress me."

She spits the toothpick out of her mouth with a speed and ferocity that rivaled only Genma's. Sakura, knowing better than to catch it, deflects it with a kunai that she then tosses up at Tomoyo. She waits until the weapon has been dodged before she performs a handful of seals, and performs a kawarimi. 

The substitution jutsu tugs at her bellybutton, and suddenly Sakura is high in the air, her back to her enemy. She turns, fist reared back and comes down hard to meet the sheath of Tomoyo's blade, chokuto still within. The woman smiles beneath her, holding the weight of Sakura's blow before she unsheathes the weapon. 

The movement jostles Sakura backwards, and she falls quickly, landing and rolling on the accidental earth maze she had created with her earlier jutsu. It's a jungle gym of sorts, the kind that Naruto would immediately leap on if he ever had the chance. 

And then there is no time to think of Naruto because there is a swordsman coming at Sakura and she needs her wits about her to survive. 

It's unfortunate, backed into a fight she knows she has little chance of winning. She uses her kunai to deflect as much as she can, but Tomoyo spots openings that Sakura must scramble to avoid. It's only when she tries to repeat her kawarimi trick that Tomoyo anticipates it, turning to grab Sakura by the front of her shirt and to slam her down into the earth that Sakura realizes she might not win this fight like she expected to. 

The Uzushio shinobi around them circle in a little bit more, and Sakura gets a flash of Hikaru's troubled face before Tomoyo is bearing down towards her. With all the bearing of a woman that has fought in worse situations, Sakura performs a second doton to create a wall of earth that takes the force of Tomoyo's blow, eating the tip of her sword as she does. 

Sakura scrambles from beneath the wall, watching Tomoyo test the strength of the jutsu. It won't give up her sword, so she abandons it. Sakura heaves a light sigh of relief, but there isn't time. 

Tomoyo is spitting fire. 

Sakura demands the water in the air to conform to her will with a Water Bullet that pierces the flames that have begun to lick towards her. It proves to be a bad idea. Through the steam, Tomoyo fires a volley of senbon. Sakura has a split second to realize that she is standing directly in front of Hotaru, pulses her chakra out of the tenketsu to deflect the needles.

It doesn't prove to be enough. The senbon are attached to ninja wire, and Tomoyo drags them back out of the air and unleashes them on Sakura as she will. Sakura grits her teeth, annoyed. She hasn't had to deal with this shit since Sasori, and now she's got about thirteen people to protect instead of just one Granny Chiyo. 

She doesn't waste time testing her options. Raiton and katon would follow any trail you laid them on in a way that other nature transformations didn't. If she let herself get hit with a few of the senbon, then unleashed a fire style jutsu, they'd follow the wire back to Tomoyo and give her as good as she'd been giving. 

She had seen Sasuke do it once, during the war, had seen it in Obito's memories. An Uchiha technique to be sure. But one that would give Sakura an edge. 

So she runs. She bobs and weaves carefully, aware of the ways in which the Uzushio shinobi are closing in on her still. She bides her time, waiting until Tomoyo has gathered her senbon enough for another volley. Then a light pivot on her heel, and a full stop. 

Seven senbon in her right arm, two on her chest, nine on her left arm. She is standing in front of Senju Touka. Sakura grits her teeth, ignoring the pain of needles flung deeply into her flesh, and behind her eyepatch, her Sharingan whorls to life. 

 _'Let her have it,'_ Kurama whispers, feeding the eye so that Sakura won't have to. She will thank him for it later. 

She forms the seals for a Grand Fireball, and fuels it with less than half the chakra. She spits it down along the eighteen senbon that quiver in her flesh. Tomoyo catches her game and drags the needles out of Sakura with an astounding quickness, but the fire has already traveled to lick angry at her fingers. 

The Nobi were wildfires. And though Sakura was a spring field by birth, she was an Uchiha by technique, by exposure, and by brotherhood. Obito had given her the world with his eye, and Sasuke had been a better friend in the last six months of their lives than they had been the entire time they had known each other.

The two of them, the last of the Uchiha had taught her everything that they could. It was the only way to say, 'I love you' in those times; to give someone a technique that might help them survive. Obito may have had Kakashi, and Sasuke may have had Naruto, but Sakura had the both of them with their black eyes and their black hair and their awful attitudes. 

War forged, they were her family, too. And Sakura knew fire. 

The Grand Fireball she puffs her chest with now is one that is full of bitter memories, ones that she tries to push out of her mind. They are Obito's memories, Obito's desperation to be better, to be enough, to get his clan's signature jutsu right, to not fail  _for once_ in front of his clan head, in front of his elders. 

Standing in front of Minako, of Ashina, Sakura completely understands his young agony. 

Her fireball is a brilliant hot white light that barrels towards Tomoyo like the fireballs of the Nobi clan crest. Sakura follows it, using its brilliance for cover. When the world gets impossibly hotter, she knows Tomoyo has done something similar, has sent up a wall of fire to eat at Sakura's, so that they will burn each other out. 

Sakura grits her teeth through the pain of the flame, harnessing her chakra into her fist for a knockout blow. Tomoyo's face isn't guarded with her armor, and she has no fuinjutsu tattoos there. This time, when Sakura hits her, it will connect. She activates her Byakugō so that leaping through fire will not burn her. 

And when she jumps into the flames, her fist is met with another. 

The surprise of seeing Tomoyo jump through fire is enough to widen Sakura's eye. She's seen plenty of things, but even this is a surprise. Tomoyo is grinning lightly at her though, the expression turning into a grimace as her own fist shatters beneath the strength of Sakura's. Imperceptibly, she rolls her own knuckles downwards so that the armor covering her wrist knocks against Sakura's knuckles. 

Sakura's eyes widen, and she deactivates her Byakugō a second too late, snatching her hand back to herself. 

The plates on Tomoyo's armor could redirect the force of an attack back onto whoever was landing a blow on it. With her Byakugō activated, every hit Sakura landed was guaranteed to be augmented with chakra. Deactivating it moments after Tomoyo rolled her armor onto Sakura's fist left her with a few broken fingers instead of a forearm made of sand.

She feels like an idiot. It had been months,  _months_ since she had fought someone that might have been at her level, and here she was making rookie mistakes. Underestimating her opponent, allowing herself to get distracted, allowing herself to care about anything other than making it out of the fight alive. 

Tsunade would throat punch her for that. 

Shame burns Sakura from the inside out, and she goes to reactivate her Byakugō when Tomoyo raises her hand. At that point, Sakura realizes that she's only a few short feet away from Hotaru. 

Close quarters fights were difficult but not impossible. Sakura had faced worse odds. With her shame licking high at the back of her neck, she's hungry to prove herself. She's better than this, she knows she is. And if she wants a chance to get onto the mainland, to save the world before there's anything to even save in the first place, she has to prove to these people that she  _can._

"I'd take hits like a maniac, too," Tomoyo says wryly, "if I had a jutsu that could heal me as soon as I took them."

Sakura thinks absently of the healed senbon wounds on her arms and torso and wriggles her broken fingers. She can form ninjutsu with both hands; she had been caught under a  Zetsu made rockslide in her timeline, had to learn by fire how to drag the earth off of her arm with chakra with her left hand because her right was pinned below.

It had become a cultivated habit for all of them, until they could be Uchiha fast with their hand signs. Performing them one handed or not at all came as they began to lose hands and arms, ones that Sakura or Ino or Tsunade or Shizune could replace. 

"I affirm Nobi Tsubaki's nomination to the Nobi seat of Uzumaki Mito's Handmaiden's Guard."

She says it with her palm in the air. The assorted shinobi around her nod, witnessing the moment. Tomoyo drops her arm and offers it, the one with the broken hand to Sakura. She laughs, and there's a light grin on Tomoyo's face as well, as Sakura uses her own broken fingers to grasp Tomoyo's forearm. 

"You're one of us alright," she says. "Reckless as anything, but twice as smart."

Sakura purses her lips, trying to hide the smile that wants to flutter over her face. She had always been tame when she was younger, desperate to appear pretty, like a proper young lady in front of Sasuke. It was only when he had left, when she had discovered that her world was more than just him, that she let herself  _be_ herself. 

Demanding an apprenticeship from the Godaime wasn't just a calculated risk on Sakura's part. It was a reckless gamble. She was a nobody, whose family hadn't been even remotely important since the Warring States Period, and even then had faded into obscurity once the wars were over.

Unlike Ino, whose family had allied with the Senju when the wars were over and had a powerful family technique to boot, Sakura had no political weight to back up her request. Ino's apprenticeship to Tsunade brought clout to the Yamanaka, and an ally to the Hokage in terms of clan council meetings and the like. Sakura? Sakura's name was barely important anymore. Her family's alliance to the Uchiha had been hushed ever since the Massacre. 

She was just a girl, alone, demanding guidance. 

And Tsunade had taken a chance on her. A sucker's bet, some people had whispered. Shinobi who knew Sakura's teammates better than they knew her; the kunoichi on the squad with the jinchuuriki, the last Uchiha, and Sharingan no Kakashi. No moniker, no nickname. Useless.

It certainly had looked like the Godaime had taken on another bad bet at that time, didn't it?

"Here," Sakura says, gently tugging on Tomoyo's arm. 

She activates her Byakugō a final time, because she does not want to waste time focusing on healing herself. Her fingers knit themselves back together with a concentrated ease, and Sakura carefully runs her palm over Tomoyo's hand to heal each of the twenty-seven bones she had managed to break. 

"Huh."

Sakura looks up at the taller woman, who peers down at her with a considering look on her face. 

"You'll have to open a school," Tomoyo says, "for this medical ninjutsu and for that seal of yours. I think I want one for myself."

Sakura smirks, and carefully begins to stretch Tomoyo's newly healed fingers. 

"Only if you teach me the fuinjutsu on your armor," she returns. 

"You got it," Tomoyo laughs, taking back her hand as Sakura releases it. "Now give me back my sword."

Sakura looks at the winding contraption of earth walls and maze that she had thrown up in the beginning of the fight, before she places her hands down onto the ground and encourages the stone and mud to return to where it came from. It goes back with a satisfied sludging, releasing Tomoyo's chokuto to clatter neatly onto the grassy earth as it does. 

She rises, and suddenly Minako is there, smiling in a private way, dragging Sakura into a bear-like hug. It catches her a little off guard the way all of Minako's hugs have, and Sakura wraps her arms around the woman. It gives her a chance to look down at the lines on her arms, the peculiar shape of her Byakugō on her skin. 

The lines are slimmer than they were when they were reflecting only her chakra. They wind in thin circles around her arms, curving over her forearms and wrists, even down over the knuckles of each finger. 

How strange she must look. 

"You fought poorly," Minako says honestly, clapping Sakura on the back. "Like you'd forgotten which way was up."

Sakura smiles sheepishly at the scolding. 

"I did, for a little while," she replies. "Your sister is very good."

Minako nods, looking to where Tomoyo has gone to Ashina, probably to discuss Sakura's fight. 

"She is," Minako replies. "But if you had gotten your bearings even a minute sooner, you might have won."

Hikaru rolls his eyes, folding his arms across his chest. 

"If the fight had lasted another minute, she would've won," he argues. 

Sakura ruffles his hair, and wonders if this is what Naruto felt like when Konohamaru had all the faith only a child could have in someone they looked up to. Hikaru was older than Konohamaru, fourteen years old and preparing to wear manhood with a kind of confidence that Konohamaru didn't live long enough to see. 

Sakura is twenty and has lived through a war with a god. Everyone that hasn't seen battle in this world seems a little young to her. 

When she looks back to Minako to reply to Hikaru's vote of confidence, her eyes catch the Senju, standing further off in a huddle, the three of them. They are looking at her with tense faces, unhappy. 

It is then that Sakura remembers that the fires she had spat in her spar were Uchiha flames, katon ninjutsu taught only to scions of the uchiwa emblazoned clan. She didn't know how much Ryo or Mito had told Tobirama and his cousins about Sakura's past, but if they had mentioned anything about the Senju, it was likely that they had an inkling that Sakura and her family were formerly vassals of that clan. 

And a Senju mimicking Uchiha techniques was unheard of. It meant bloodline theft or fraternization with the enemy. And in the eyes of the shinobi of this era, Sakura was only vaguely sure of which one was the worse sentence. 

She swallows, the weight of their suspicion infecting the air, even through the joy of her confirmation as the Nobi handmaiden. 

"Tsubaki!" Momo shouts, appearing from the wider perimeter that she and the other current handmaidens of Mito and Ashina's guard had created. "Congratulations!"

"Great fight, Tsubaki," Utano says, joining soon thereafter. "You lasted way longer than I did against my cousin Fuu."

"I can't  _believe_ you  _broke_ Tomoyo-baa-chan's hand," Kikue gushes, "you've got to teach me how to do that. Nobody ever gets through her armor!"

"It was an excellent match," Rin adds. "You should consider it a victory."

They all crowd around her, patting her shoulder and giving her affirmations of pride. Even the other clan heads appear to congratulate her as well, breaking the circle they had made for Sakura's fight. 

And what a lovely ritual that was, that by the end of the spar, the clan heads and heirs were all close together to reaffirm their commitment to one another, and to protecting the heirs of the Uzumaki.

Usagi is the only one of Sakura's new teammates that does not join in the congratulations; someone must stay at Mito's side always, even if the rest of them are within spitting distance. 

Sakura watches from across the clearing, as Mito stands stock still beside her father, listening to Tomoyo's assessment of Sakura's fighting style. Through the wave of well wishes and congratulations and the self satisfaction that comes with knowing that now she can save all the people she has lost, Sakura tries to kill the desperate flutter in her chest that wants Mito's gaze to rest on her instead of her father.

* * *

He feels it, like a pinch underwater, when the White Zetsu is murdered in the bowels of Fire Country. 

He excuses himself from the ear of an Uchiha elder, one who insists that he is a shaman and that his divinity is why he has been graced with a black skinned yellow eyed familiar. He steps away from the compound, keeping to the darkness in his thick clothing, and heads for the copse of nearby trees. 

The White Zetsus are not easily killed. It is why he and his mother have an army of them, and an unending army at that. They are canon fodder, but effective canon fodder. And no one in this world ought to know how to fight them. 

Yet, somewhere in Fire Country, someone who has managed to displace time and space, knows how. 

He narrows his eyes, feeling the chakra of the still developing world around him. Whoever killed the White Zetsu he sent into the wilderness was not of this time, that much as sure. No one in this world had faced a White Zetsu before, and was more likely to die in a battle with one than to win. 

Which meant that someone had traveled from the future. A future wherein a battle between his mother and the world itself was being waged. Perhaps was on the verge of being won, if a desperate attempt at space-time ninjutsu had flung someone so far back in the timeline. 

It makes him smile, mouthless as he is. Desperate times for those who had stolen his mother's chakra. But it meant victory was a thing almost totally assured, if a lone soldier had hedged all their bets on being able to stop him before he was able to complete his mother's task. 

He sends thirty more White Zetsu, surely a number that can kill a lone shinobi. He turns over his shoulder to head back to the Uchiha shaman, and sees the moon hanging high in the morning sky. 

 _'Soon,'_ he thinks. _'Much sooner than we think.'_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have a research paper to write but i really wanted to this instead lmao


	10. Chapter 10

The preparations for the wedding party's trip to the mainland begin almost immediately after Sakura is officially named the Nobi handmaiden. It makes little difference. Because of her new status, she has to be around for an inspection of Mito's carriage, so that she and the others can become familiar with its shape in case of an ambush. She also gets to meet several other Uzushio shinobi, ones that clap her on the back and give her a game smile. 

They had always recognized her as the foreigner, then as the Nobi ward. Their eyes had glazed with respect when she began teaching Mito the Byakugō. Now they look at her fondly. Not as if she is a warrior, sworn to protect the heir of Uzushio, but as if she is that girl's sister, and friend. 

It's a strange look to have placed on her shoulders. 

Sakura has intentionally not sought Mito out in the days following the festival. The shame of coming undone in public was enough to keep her lips tightly sealed. And there was no Ino around to facilitate field mental health check-ups, so talking out her troubles was the absolute last answer to the problem at hand. 

It had upset her, to an obscene degree, the level of intimacy she had inadvertently offered to the Uzumaki princess. Before the war, Sakura had been an easy hand with love. She was affectionate, too kind, too warm. It had cost her dearly when it came to Sasuke. It had been worth it the first time she fell into Ino. 

Then the war. Then losing her parents. And then everyone else afterwards. Then Tenten. Then Ino. Then Naruto, and Sasuke. Her heart has been a thing that pumps blood for years, not an organ of feeling, not a site of emotion. Not when there was no time to mourn. Not when there was nothing to bury or burn or pray over. 

She likes Minako, and Hikaru, too. Likes the other Handmaidens. She actually does like Touka and Tobirama, strange though it may be. And while she's had little contact with Marishi and Ashina, she thinks highly of them. She likes Ryo, and Akira, annoying though he may be.

And maybe that was only because she was completely capable of keeping them at an arm's length. They had no need to dig beneath her skin, to pick at what festered under her easy smiles and willingness to teach and be taught. 

But Mito had picked, and had seen. 

She wishes now, adamantly, that Hikaru had found her, or that Minako had. Anyone other than Mito. The princess with the dead brother and a heart as big as Naruto's under her tightly controlled calm. The first face that Sakura had seen in this strange new world.

And it had to happen this way, didn't it? That the Shodaime's wife should be the only person to see not the grief that Sakura carries, but to prod insistently at that weight. Minako knew to leave well enough alone. When Sakura clammed up, Minako watched her with a careful eye and encouraged her into games of shogi or dish washing, or any task that would keep Sakura's shaking hands busy. 

Mito? Mito insisted that Sakura's life before Uzushio still existed, but that her life on Uzushio was _important_. As if she knew that this little island in Whirlpool Country was a pit stop on Sakura's one man mission to save the world as she knew it. 

She told Sakura about her brother. Uzumaki Yashiro. The firstborn son, lost to history. And Sakura had told Mito about Ino. 

She had dared to think Mito beautiful. 

It made her want to rip off her own fingernails. She had thought Tenten lovely, a handsome woman really. 'Beautiful' was a word reserved for Ino. Ino, who had been the first girl Sakura had ever found so pretty it made her face feel hot and her stomach tie itself in knots.

It felt like a betrayal. 

She had hung her head in shame when she returned to the Nobi clan compound. Had held her head between her knees and rocked, furious and weeping, because if Ino was gone, there  _were_ no more beautiful women in the world. 

And the logical part of her brain insists that finding a girl pretty isn't a bad or evil thing, that it's just a thought like any other thought, but Sakura can't convince herself that's true. It was better in the long run if she avoided thinking like that. If she just - kept her distance like she had with everyone else, with the ones she hadn't thought were beautiful. 

It wasn't likely that she was going to survive this mission anyway. She had briefly considered ending her own life if she managed to set everything to rights, to see if she could join Ino and Naruto and her parents in the Pure Land. If she did a good enough job, she wouldn't have to stay and oversee the founding of the village.

The only things that had gone wrong really were Black Zetsu's doing, and all the trouble with the jinchuuriki would be solved once she placed Kurama's excess chakra back inside this time's version of himself. There would be no use for her. She could teach, but she had already taught. And it seemed wrong almost, to teach her shishou's techniques, to steal Tsunade's fame as the first truly successful combat medic the world had ever seen. 

Perhaps she could sow the seeds. Give the techniques to the Senju, so that Tsunade could find them. Maybe then, she would be three times the woman that she was when Sakura knew her. Three times the shinobi. She may even figure out a way around the lifespan reduction that came with overuse of the Byakugō. And wouldn't that be something?

And Sakura? Sakura would - Sakura would cross that bridge when she got to it. Suicide left an unpleasant taste in her mouth, but she was among strangers here. No matter what Mito said, Sakura wasn't Uzushio. She was Konohagakure, and even then, she was not the Konoha that was going to be born in the next handful of years. She didn't belong here. And it would probably be best if she disappeared when her work was done. 

She could find a quiet place, far from Fire Country, far from Whirlpool. Perhaps she could just walk into the sea. She could use Obito's eye, and allow Amaterasu's black flames to wipe her off the face of the planet. The flames were so hungry, they devoured whatever they touched with an astonishing quickness. It was likely she wouldn't even feel a thing. 

Or perhaps she could do the simplest thing. She could end her own life easily from within her own body. Like Ino had, that lifetime ago. It didn't take much for a skilled medical shinobi to kill themselves. One flick of the wrist, a twitch of the fingers, and there went the brain stem. There went blood flow. There went oxygen. 

She would only anticipate that she had done it before it would be over.

There was work for her left to do yet. But when the time came, perhaps it would be easier than she had anticipated. She had already seen so much death, could feel a second lifetime's worth of agony whenever she opened Obito's eye, whenever she dreamt his memories. It would be nice to put two people to rest by ending her own life. 

Rest. It is a luxury only the dead can afford. 

 _'Dark thoughts,'_ Kurama rumbles, drawing his claws through the lukewarm water in her mind.  _'Dark thoughts to avoid thinking a girl pretty.'_

* * *

They are standing in the crowd assembled at the beach where all important events occur beneath the eye of the resting sea. They are watching Nobi Tsubaki take her solemn oath to protect the heir of Uzushio for as long as she lives, even at the cost of her own life. 

Tobirama watches her stand there, clad in the deep purple armor of the Nobi. It had taken some days for it to be commissioned and ready for her to wear. It was war armor, the kind that Tobirama and his cousins had worn when the first came to Uzushio. He can wince in sympathy; the humidity on the island is probably already needling at Tsubaki, though her composure doesn't falter for a second. 

Nobi Tomoyo stands to Tsubaki's right. On her left is Nobi Aina, the Nobi handmaiden for Ashina's mother, Uzumaki Megumi. She is an old woman, much older than the Senju elders by many years. But she stands in similar purple armor, just as Tsubaki and Tomoyo do, with strong spines and resolute faces. 

The other handmaidens of Tsubaki's generation are assembled with their predecessors. The Tatsumaki are clad in a dark green armor, the Unarigoe in a pale blue; the Hisame are in white, the Fubuki in grey, and the Raiu in burnt orange. The clan heads are dressed similarly, not in full armor and battle regalia, but in solemnly tied formal robes. 

As Ashina delivers a speech, Tobirama's red eyes settle on Nobi Tsubaki. 

"A Grand Fireball?" Touka had spluttered, incredulous. "How on earth does she know that technique?"

"She was a war child," Tobirama reasoned. "There's no telling what she might have learned in the wild through imitation."

"The Grand Fireball is  _not_ a technique any Uchiha, deserter or not would go around teaching a stranger," Ginjirou said, arms folded. 

Tobirama grit his teeth. 

"Perhaps she was married to one?" Touka asked. "It would explain why she knows it, though she doesn't seem the marrying type."

"Yes, because an Uchiha deserter would desperately want to wed a vassal of the Senju," Ginjirou had returned. 

"It isn't a secret technique," Tobirama snapped. 

"Do you know it?" Ginjirou asked. 

Tobirama sucked his teeth and conceded the point. The Uchiha, for a family with a doujutsu that could copy any technique, were notoriously stingy when it came to preserving the jutsu that they created on their own. Tobirama understood. He didn't want anyone who wasn't helping him craft the Hiraishin to as much as sniff in its direction.

"We have to report it."

Tobirama and Touka's eyes had snapped to Ginjirou. They had both known, of course, that this was not a piece of information that could simply be forgotten or ignored. A ward of the Nobi or not, Tsubaki was a potential threat to the Senju. 

No doubt the elders would want the Uchiha jutsu. There was a reason Tobirama had an extensive katon development phase in his slightly younger years. Yes, the elders would want to know how the technique worked and if it could be taught to the Senju before they gave Tsubaki their blessing. 

But if she met an Uchiha on the battlefield, then questions of theft would arise. It wasn't a secret jutsu, no, but it was a closely guarded family heirloom. The Grand Fireball was a technique passed from mother to son, father to daughter in the Uchiha clan. An outsider had no business knowing it.

It wouldn't help peace talks if Tsubaki was an outsider. It screamed of theft, and if the war ended and the Uchiha found out about Tsubaki, they'd want her head. Or at least a trial, something to punish her for knowing that she shouldn't have known. Her knowledge of the technique made Tobirama worry about her mystery of a bloodline, her life before she ended up in Uzushio.

It could mean that one of Tsubaki's parents indeed had been of a Senju vassal clan, while the other could have been an Uchiha deserter, or perhaps one born without the kekkei genkai. A member slightly less adept in battle, or perhaps one that was in some way disabled. Those who could not fight had little value unless they were elders. It would make anyone desert, especially if they were a distant enough cousin to the direct bloodline. 

It was possible that Tsubaki was an Uchiha. Or that she had wed one, or had planned to, and that was how she had come by that technique. 

But as Tobirama stands and watches her swear in blood to protect Uzumaki Mito and Uzushio itself, he can't help but think a terrible thought as his gaze settles on the black patch covering her left eye.

* * *

She is brushing the length of her red hair when there is a knock at her door. She recognizes it, the quick raps followed by a brief silence and then another knock. She delivers the return, not stopping the decisive rhythm of her hair brushing. 

Kikue shushins into her quarters, Tsubaki shortly behind. Mito lifts an eyebrow. 

"The two of you?" she asks. "At once?"

Kikue snorts, lightly scuffing her toes against the floor. 

"Tsubaki's the newbie, so I get the verandah and she gets you," she replies, voice teasing. 

Mito does not roll her eyes. Instead she turns back to her mirror and continues to brush her hair. Tsubaki's stony silence towards her had endured through the days of preparation that were leading up to their departure into Fire Country. Two could play at shadow games, and Mito was not keen on being treated poorly for the sake of it. 

She would have her Nobi handmaiden, but she did not have to like her. It was the kind of resolve that made things immediately more difficult because Mito  _did_ like her. 

"Alright then," Mito murmurs. "At your leave."

She can see Kikue nod. She crosses the room, feet silent. Three guards usually stayed with Mito at all times, the guard rotating during the night so that they were always fresh. One of the Handmaidens however, would sleep in her bed in a henge to ward off potential midnight killings. 

Once Mito was married, it would be impossible for one of her handmaiden's to sleep in her bed with her. Her father's guards kept their silent vigils in the walls or at the foot of his bed. Marishi was a formidable foe, and would've been a handmaiden in her own right if she had wanted it. 

The prospect of sharing a bed with Tsubaki doesn't make Mito's stomach flutter like it might have a few days ago. Now it only feels like there is lead in her chest. And, she's a little annoyed.

Kikue passes her by, curling a few strands of Mito's red hair on her fingers as she goes. She passes through the room and shushins out again onto the verandah outside, where Usagi is already. Rin, Utano, and Momo would be there later in the evening.  

Tsubaki stands in her bedroom, dressed in a simple shirt and pants. Her usual black eyepatch is replaced with bindings of tidy white bandages. Her hair is longer still, curling up around her ears. She looks as if she's unarmed. From beneath her sleeves, Mito can see the thick dark seals still in place on her forearms. 

"I'll be retiring soon," she says. "Make yourself comfortable."

"Of course."

Tsubaki's voice is cool. Quiet. Professional. It makes Mito's skin prickle with annoyance. She returns to brushing her hair, content to let the silence disquiet the both of them. She ignores the way Tsubaki moves through the room towards Mito's bed, refusing to watch her pass in the mirror. 

Mito counts her breaths and brushes her hair. She has already bathed. Rin or Momo usually had the patience to help her brush her hair, to braid it back for styling the next day. But tonight, Mito is caught between wanting to get it done and wanting it to drag on. She wants to get into bed but she's also keen on not getting there at all. 

She doesn't know how to share space with Tsubaki, and it's going to show. 

She feels childish for it and scolds herself. She's nearly a grown woman and she's about to be married. She can handle sharing a bed with one of her handmaidens. She's done it with all of them enough times to know that Rin snores if she sleeps on her side, and Utano doesn't kick as much as Kikue does. She reassures herself that this isn't as monuments an occasion as her mind is tricking her into thinking it is. 

Decisively, she stands. She leaves her brush at her mirror and walks with quick assured steps to her bed. Tsubaki is standing beside it, face resolute. Mito swallows. 

"Come on then," she says, sitting down before throwing her legs onto the bed with more bravery than she really feels. "Let's go to sleep."

Tsubaki nods once, briskly and forms the hand signs. Her work is quick, and after a slight pop, Mito is looking at herself. It's strange, especially the way Tsubaki carefully slides into bed without touching her or even getting close enough to call it an accident. 

Momo, Rin, and the others, they don't bother with the henge most nights. Sometimes, Mito will henge herself into one of them, just for the sake of keeping things interesting. Uzushio had little contact with the Mist Isles and there were less threats still coming from Fire Country. 

"You don't have to do that," Mito says, tugging the blanket up over her shoulder. 

She gives Tsubaki her back because she doesn't want to look into that one green eye. The one whose gaze she's been chasing for days like a lovestruck civilian instead of the figurehead that she is. 

Tsubaki says nothing in response. Mito shuts her eyes and wonders how she's going to handle this now, how she'll handle it in Fire Country as well. Perhaps it will be good to have a lawful-husband. Hashirama's presence in Mito's bed will ensure that this terrible moment and others like it will never occur for as long as he is alive. 

It shouldn't be as reassuring a thought as it is. 

Mito fidgets, cracks her ankle, and tries to settle down for rest. It always takes her some time to fall asleep, and she's a light sleeper. 

"Are you comfortable?" she asks, trying for something, anything. She doesn't want to feel uncomfortable in her own bed for goodness' sake. 

"I am, Mito-sama.”

Mito purses her lips and stares at the wall. 

"Mito."

Silence. Then, "I beg your pardon?"

Irritation wins out over the need to protect her image. She caves and rolls over to face Tsubaki's white bandages and green eye and soft purple sleeping clothes. 

"Only Mito," she insists. "That is what I want you to call me. I told you."

It proves to be a poor idea, reminding the both of them about the night of Tsubaki's episode in the alleyway. The air in the room tastes so much more dry once the words leave her mouth. Mito feels foolish, surrounded by her red hair and several breaths away from the person charged to protect her life. 

Tsubaki is practically hugging the opposite end of the bed, clearly doing whatever it is she must do to keep herself from touching Mito. 

The lack of affection is another upsetting thing. Uzushio people are touchy and easy with physical affection. Mito had stifled that part of herself after Yashiro's suicide, but it was something she indulged in, in private. With her handmaidens and with her parents, with her cousins in the Uzumaki compound as well. 

Tsubaki touched exactly two people on the island for the sake of touching them; Minako and Hikaru. 

"If that will make you more comfortable," Tsubaki replies, acquiescing easily. Mito's fingers bunch in the bedsheets and she tries to tamp down on her irritation. 

"It would, thank you," she replies. 

She wants to roll over on her back, if only to seem aloof or distant, as if she has no reason to care what Tsubaki calls her or why Tsubaki saves her affection for two people in her clan and no one else on the island. 

But she can't turn away. Tsubaki is on her back, far away, and Mito can see her green eye flick from Mito on the bed to the ceiling above them. She's above the blanket, but she's pushed enough of it over to Mito so that if she shifts in her sleep she'll have enough blanket to still cover herself through the night. It's an irritatingly thoughtful gesture. 

Mito purses her lips and tries to close her eyes. The candles in her room had been extinguished earlier in the evening, and a series of chakra fueled small red lanterns held maintained the light in her room. Mito presses her hand to the wall behind her bed, and carefully removes the chakra in the seal so that the lights dim into nothing. 

The darkness pools around them, and Mito listens to the careful sound of Tsubaki breathing. The room feels stifled but the air in the room was cool. It was a nice night, and Kikue was likely to be having a pleasant evening on patrol outside. 

"Good night," Mito says, interrupting the quiet. 

"Good night," Tsubaki replies, as soon as the words leave Mito's mouth. Not terse, but quick. Waiting for silence. To do her job. 

Mito grits her teeth and shuts her eyes. She tries to circulate her breathing, a usual habit that helps her relax into stillness, but finds that she can't. Tsubaki is too still in her bed. The other handmaidens, girls Mito has known since her girlhood, they get under the sheets with her. Usagi shoves her cold toes under Mito's thighs. Momo sticks her pillow between her knees instead of under her head.

Tsubaki is still. Her breath is slow and measured. But she doesn't move even once. She sleeps like Yashiro did when he returned from Fire Country. Completely still, armed even beneath his sleep clothes. Mito had made the mistake of walking into his room one night when she heard him hollering during a nightmare. The puckered scar on her stomach was the reward she had gotten for protecting her brother. 

That had been the change. When the island as a whole began to suspect that Yashiro would not lead the Uzumaki as his father had. The Uzumaki were typically matriarchal, but Ashina had been an only child whose sisters had died in infancy. Mito's birth hadn't been an assurance of a return to the matriarchal system. She would still be judged based on her character and her ability to lead. If she was not able, then her brother would. 

But she still had Rin as her first handmaiden when they were both six. It had been a promise before Mito was even old enough to need handmaidens, just in case she was the one chosen to rule Uzushio. Yashiro had his own guard when he left. He was nineteen, and his handmaidens had been of similar ages. They had gone with him into Fire Country. Yashiro was the only one of them that did not survive after they returned home. 

Mito's hand drops to the scar on her belly and she wonders how Tsubaki would fare if Mito kicked her by accident in the night. Mito wonders how she would respond if Tsubaki woke up screaming from her own bad dreams. The ones of the war in Fire Country, of her mysterious brothers. Of her wife. 

A wife. What a wonderful and awful revelation that had been. It made Tsubaki all the more unknowable in the same way it made her familiar. Mito wanted to know more, and yet, what could she ask? How long they had been wed? How her wife had died? What was there to say?

"You're still awake."

The sound of Tsubaki's voice makes Mito's eyes snap open. She hasn't moved an inch since she laid down beside Mito, her hands still folded neatly on her stomach, eye still open and staring up at the ceiling. 

Mito doesn't know how long it's been. It can't have been more than ten minutes. It usually takes her an hour to get to sleep, maybe more. 

"I have a hard time going to sleep," she replies, shifting somewhat on the bed. "Have I disturbed you?"

Tsubaki shakes her head. Mito watches her do it, watches her and listens to the rustle of her head on the pillow as she shakes her head from side to side. 

"My brother had similar troubles," Tsubaki says, voice soft. "Naruto. It took him ages to get to sleep at night."

Mito knows a peace offering when she sees one.

"Naruto?" she repeats. 

Tsubaki snorts. 

"I know. Silly isn't it? But believe it or not, he was named after a character in a story rather than the food."

Mito smiles, feels safe to do it because it's dark.

"How did he get to sleep at night?" she asks.

"Talking helped sometimes," Tsubaki replies. "We'd tell him stories, Sasuke and I would. We'd talk about things Naruto thought were boring, and the sound of us talking would knock him right out."

Mito purses her lips, measuring how she should ask her question.

"Wasn't that difficult?"

She doesn't specify for during the war. It must have been difficult to talk to him when they were under threat from bandits, or nomadic clans, or whoever was looking for them to a degree that they would go through with a potentially dangerous transportation fuinjutsu.

But Tsubaki doesn't tense at the question. In fact, she seems to relax.

"We'd write on his palms," Tsubaki says. "Naruto always slept in the middle. I would be on his left, and Sasuke was on his right. And we'd write on his palms the things we wanted to tell him when it wasn't safe to talk out loud."

It catches her by surprise, knowing that the both of them have lost brothers. Mito lost Yashiro to himself, but Tsubaki lost Naruto and Sasuke to the war in Fire Country. Mito thinks of how hopeless she was when he lost Yashiro, and tries to magnify that by two to approximate Tsubaki's loss. When she adds in the Nobi handmaiden's deceased wife, Mito's stomach churns with how much the war has taken from Tsubaki. 

Suddenly, her behavior the day that Tsubaki landed squarely on the beaches of Uzushio is repugnant. Foreigner or not, Mito should have known by the way Tsubaki was dressed then, by the way she flinched, and looked, wide-eyed and jittery that she was not a threat. That she was looking for shelter, not a fight. 

She should have recognized the frightened look in Tsubaki's eyes from seeing it in Yashiro's. Mito had done the correct thing, yes. It wasn't known then, whether or not Tsubaki was a threat to her people. Still. If she had known then what she knows now, she might have behaved differently. She might have been kinder. She wishes now that she had been. 

"Will you write on my palm, Tsubaki?" 

The question hangs in the air, and for a moment, Mito wonders again if she has gone too far. Then, slowly, Tsubaki turns her head and looks at her with her good green eye in the dark. She reaches out, and presses the back of her hand against the bed a few inches away from Mito's face. 

Mito's palm leaves the scar on her stomach and she leaves it a little bit beneath Tsubaki's. Tsubaki lifts her hand, and carefully drops one fingertip onto Mito's open palm. 

The writing of the story is slow work, one careful curve and swipe at a time. There are characters that Mito doesn't recognize, but context helps her extrapolate exactly what she's being told. Perhaps it is because of a difference in dialect; though the languages of the world were almost mostly the same, there were likely to be spelling differences and different alphabets around the world to make the same sounds.

 _'Once upon a time,'_ Tsubaki writes,  _'there was a rabbit eared princess. She was_ _beautiful and wonderful, and to stop the ceaseless wars that plagued the world, ate the fruit of the God Tree so that she could gain the strength to bring peace to the world.'_

It isn't a story that Mito has ever heard before. All of the myths she had grown up with were those of Yorokobi, and the seven storm gods and their wars. She knew of Nobi's endless hunger, and Raiu's trickster ways. She knew of the constant alliances and betrayals between Tatsumaki and Unarigoe. She knew of Hisame's awkward journey from the mountains to the sea, how he came because his sister Fubuki missed him keenly. She knew of Uzumaki's boisterous laugh.

But she had never heard of rabbit eared Kaguya and the God Tree. 

_'The rabbit eared princess became a goddess with the strength of the God Tree, but she slowly went mad. She thought that her sons had stolen her great power by being able to use the strength of the God Tree as she had, so she merged with the Tree to seek vengeance on her children.'_

In spite of herself, Mito's eyelids grow heavy. It's a nice story, if not strange. She's never been told a story through her hand before, but she remembers being a small child and hearing the stories of the island's gods from her parents.

This one of the Rabbit Goddess and her sons is different, though it is still familiar. It reminds her of Fubuki and Hisame's tenuous relationship, how they only fought together when they were warring with another one of the storm gods. Otherwise, they were usually sniping at each other's throats. 

_'Her two sons overcame her and sealed her away into the moon. But they say that one day, the Rabbit Goddess will return to this world to reclaim what her sons have stolen from her.'_

Mito purses her lips. It was a strange story to one who lived on Uzushio. Perhaps they were spoiled by happy endings and mothers that did not want to murder their sons. 

"When will she come back?" Mito asks. 

"Soon," Tsubaki murmurs. 

"Has she already?"

Tsubaki's green eye blinks slowly, as if she is trying to remember what the next part of the story is. 

"Yes," she replies. "But she was defeated again."

"By who?"

Tsubaki smiles. 

"By a great hero," she says. "His name was Naruto."

Mito's gaze softens a bit. 

"Is that who your brother was named after?"

Tsubaki nods once. 

"Yes, that was him."

Mito hums, nodding slowly as she does. 

"Then it's not a silly name at all," Mito says. "He was named after a great hero, not a snack. I'm sure there are plenty of children in Fire Country named Naruto."

Tsubaki chuckles at that, and the sound is a little wet. Mito shuts her eyes to give Tsubaki a measure of privacy while she wipes her tears. 

"Maybe one day there will be," she replies. "Not many people know the story of the Rabbit Goddess."

With slowly curling fingers, Mito wraps her hand carefully around Tsubaki's, then gives it a gentle squeeze. 

"If you ever have a son, Tsubaki, you should name him after Naruto," she murmurs. "After the hero, and after your brother."

Miraculously, Tsubaki squeezes Mito's hand back. It's more of a spasm than anything else, as if she isn't sure of what to do with her hand. But Mito knows what she means and lightly rubs her thumb against Tsubaki's hand. 

"Maybe I will," she whispers. 

Mito hums again, feeling sleepy. She looks at Tsubaki's hand, and her eyes linger unhappily on her wrist, where black seals curl up her arm. Abruptly, Mito sits up. The movement is enough to jar Tsubaki into doing the same. 

"Give me your arm," Mito demands. 

Tsubaki's eyes narrow, but she obliges. She holds out her right arm, and Mito pushes her sleeve up as far as she can. When it bunches around her shoulder, hiding the remains of the seal just beneath Tsubaki's armpit, Mito sucks her teeth in annoyance. 

"Off."

Tsubaki blinks. 

"I'm sorry?"

Mito fights down a blush the color of her hair. 

"Remove your shirt. Take it off."

Tsubaki nods jerkily and obliges, clearly confused. Mito swallows, carefully averting her eyes as Tsubaki removes the shirt and bunches the cloth around her breasts to protect her modesty. Then, she offers her arm again. 

With the seal distracting her from the scarred skin on Tsubaki's upper arms, and the puckered skin across her upper chest, Mito carefully bites the skin on her thumb and runs her blood down the length of Tsubaki's arm. Then she lifts the arm into the air, and runs another line of blood down Tsubaki's index finger all the way into her armpit. She repeats the process on her right arm, and with her hand forms the half tiger/ram sign, and releases the seals from Tsubaki's skin. 

The curved lines warp upwards into the air, lifting themselves off Tsubaki's skin, and as they do, they dissipate into nothing. 

Tsubaki looks down at her arms, carefully inspecting them before she looks back at Mito. 

"You're a handmaiden now," Mito says, voice resolute. "It's high time we stopped treat you as if you were still a threat." 

She is aware that if Tsubaki had been a spy, had been biding her time until she had the Uzumaki's trust, that now would be her best chance to kill Mito. She had her chakra back, had full control of her arms under her grasp once more. 

But Mito knows, she  _knows_ that Tsubaki will never do anything to hurt her, or anyone she cares about. 

"Thank you," Tsubaki murmurs. 

"You're welcome."

It may get her in some minor trouble in the morning. She was supposed to tell her father and the other clan heads when she thought it was a good time to release the seals from Tsubaki's arms, and then as a group, they would debate the proposition. But Tsubaki was coming with Mito to Fire Country. At this point, the seals on her arms seemed irrelevant. More like an insult than anything else. 

When Tsubaki moves her shirt away from her chest, Mito averts her eyes again, staring down at her own hands until Tsubaki stops rustling and her shirt is on again. Like someone not raised to have the bearing of a young queen, Mito wants to look, wants to see. There are a thousand stories in the scars on Tsubaki's chest, maybe more still on her stomach. 

On her skin was written a life of war, and Mito wanted to know. But she also wanted to see. Tsubaki's skin looked - it looked somehow soft under the scars. 

But Tsubaki's sleeping shirt is back on before Mito can convince herself that she even is the type of person that would try to look. She was raised better than that, so she keeps her eyes down. 

When Tsubaki shifts and settles back down, Mito follows, still with her eyes on the other woman. There's less tension in Tsubaki's face now. She doesn't look happy per se, but she does look content. Like the world has finally relaxed a little bit more. Mito can feel the strength of Tsubaki's chakra buffeting against her tenketsu, cheerful inside Tsubaki's body. 

"Here," Tsubaki says, opening her palm to take Mito's. "I'll tell you another story."

Mito falls asleep to Tsubaki writing on her palm the story of Tsunade, the Slug Princess. 

* * *

 

It happens in the morning. Sakura remembers falling asleep distinctly, her hand still clasped in Mito's. She had a firm grip and was a light sleeper, and if Sakura moved to take her hand back to herself, Mito's grey eyes would flutter open and she would mumble indistinctly, squeezing Sakura's hand until she acquiesced and stayed where she was. 

The night passed. Sakura slept soundly, only waking when Utano came to relieve her in the darkest point of the night. Mito had grumbled then, too, but Utano had slid into her henge of red hair and grey eyes and winked as she took Sakura's place. 

She stays on the compound, joining the exterior rotation with Kikue. She heads inside for interior rotation, slipping easily into the walls and in the ceiling above Mito's room. It's peculiar, almost like what she always imagined being ANBU would be like. 

Day breaks hesitantly, as if it, too, still wants to sleep. When the sun rises, the evening rotations end, and a pat on the arm from Rin tells Sakura that it's time to come out of the wall. 

She cracks her neck as she goes, joining the other Handmaidens where they gather just outside Mito's room. They all stand in a straight line at attention, starting with Momo and ending with Utano. Sakura recognizes the empty spot between Momo and Kikue. She stands at attention with them, wondering just exactly what it is they're waiting for. 

In the early morning light, still a little dark around the edges, Mito emerges from her room. She is not armed. In fact, she is in a simple yukata the color of the dawn rising above them. Her hair is pulled back into a high tail at the back of her head, and on her forehead are the three golden clips of the Uzumaki family. In the ponytail are two tama kanzashi from which a pair of tidy white seals hang.

In her right hand, she wields a three pronged yari. There are no seals carved onto its staff, but there are a pair of bright silver bells tied just beneath the cross guards of the blade. 

In her left hand, she holds a sheathed tantō. She tosses it, and Sakura catches it out of the air. 

"Hikaru says you practice with them," Mito says by way of anything else. 

Sakura unsheathes the blade to check its weight, then looks back up at her charge. 

"I hope you had a good night's rest," Mito purrs. 

As one, the other handmaidens step off to the side, and Mito leaps off the verandah, her spear bearing down hard towards Sakura's face. 

She throws the sheath the rest of the way of the tanto and brings up its blade to defend. It isn't enough. Mito has gravity on her side, and her spear has a longer reach than Sakura's tantō. Still, she is better with the dagger than she has ever been with a longer sword. 

She uses her tantō to parry the blow, knocking the yari's fine front tooth away from her face. She leaps back, and is pleasantly surprised to find none of the handmaidens are in her way. Mito follows, striking outwards with a furious onslaught of jabs that would impale Sakura if she were any slower. 

She had never pegged Uzumaki Mito for a master of sōjutsu, but here she is, wielding the triangle spear like it's nothing. Now that she thinks about it, Uzushio is an island and they eat plenty of fish. The trident like weapon was probably a popular tool for fishing before it became a battle instrument. 

Sakura gets the hilarious vision of Uzumaki Mito, heir of Uzushio, using her yari to spear a trout before her opponent lashes out the butt of her spear against Sakura's legs. Sakura leaps up, twisting her tantō to bring its blunt end against Mito's head. 

Mito smirks, lifts two fingers, and a burst of pure chakra so bright and intense it reminds her achingly of Naruto nearly knocks the dagger out of Sakura's hands. Mito brings up her yari, using the body of the staff to land the first blow against Sakura's midriff. 

She takes the blow, rolling with the meanness of it. It'll leave a nasty bruise, but she's had worse. She lifts an eyebrow at Mito, who twirls her spear with the polished ease of someone who knows exactly how dangerous she is. 

"Those are nice seals you have there," Sakura says, gesturing at the ones fluttering in Mito's ponytail. 

She recognizes them now that she has a better look. They're the ones Mito designed based on Sakura's Hyūga stolen ability of pulsing chakra out of the tenketsu to ward off attacks. It's a damnably clever bit of fuinjutsu, a kind of storage seal that is designed for rapid opening and closing. 

But Sakura knows the seal because Mito has taught it to her. There's only so much chakra in there, and once it's out, Mito's defense will be useless until she can get enough cover to store more chakra in them. Sakura just has to wait her out. 

Mito smirks at her, hikes her spear up into a ready position, and charges Sakura. Her bare feet do not slip against the soft grassy ground in the garden just outside of her room. When she gets close enough, she juts out the long blade towards Sakura's middle.

The fight goes on. Mito strikes at Sakura with practiced accuracy. Sakura dodges over and around herself, jumping and ducking, curving her tantō to take the brunt of Mito's strikes.

They move like they're dancing. The turn, pivot over their own steps and over each other's. At one point, Sakura catches a strike aimed at her back with the sheath of the tantō, and Mito lashes out with a kick at the stomach that would drive Sakura backwards into the yari. Sakura jumps into the air, and brings her dagger down as quickly as she can manage, and slices one of the seals in Mito's hair in half. 

The movement knocks Mito's tidy ponytail out of place. Sakura lands primly on her toes, already turning to prepare to attack when she sees Mito reach one hand into her hair and rip out the tie holding it in place. 

A wave of hair like blood, like roses, like camellias, like dahlias,  _spills_ over Mito's shoulders. The tama kanzashi clatter to the ground, but Mito grabs the one whose seal is still attached and sticks it beneath the string holding the twin bells on her weapon. 

She looks like an angel of war. Her cheeks are flushed a little from the fight, and a thin sheen of sweat is speckling her forehead from the exertion of using her weapon in a drawn out fight with someone as good at dodging as she is at attacking. 

The blue of her yukata makes her hair look all the more red, and her grey eyes are glittering with excitement. With happiness. She slides her foot back and gets into a low stance, exposing the pretty curve of her ankles, and the swell of her strong calves running into her thighs beneath her garment. 

Sakura swallows. Kurama laughs at her. 

Mito comes in slowly, shaking her spear every few seconds to get Sakura to jump from anticipation. Sakura holds her ground, ignoring the way the glint of the yari matches the steely color of Mito's eyes, narrowed in concentration as she aims for Sakura's soft bits. 

It occurs to her that she's having fun. 

She hasn't had fun in a spar since before the war. Since Naruto and Kakashi and the reunion of Team Seven. It's as exciting as it is heartbreaking, but she doesn't get a chance to laugh or cry because Mito is trying to vivisect her.

She takes a small step back to avoid being gutted, but Mito presses forward until Sakura manages to drive her tantō down into the curved portion of the blade. She holds Mito there, the other girl straining against Sakura's superior strength. 

Sakura is well aware that if she wanted to, she could snap the yari between her palms as if it were a twig instead of an actual weapon. As it is, she side steps, using her strength to knock the yari hard to the left. The movement jars Mito, who must move to follow it, but Sakura is only a few breaths faster, and narrowly, she manages to get her dagger at Mito's stomach, slotted carefully between her fourth and fifth ribs. 

Mito stops moving as soon as she feels the point of the dagger at her flesh. She turns her eyes and looks at Sakura, breath rising and falling heavily in her throat. Her gaze isn't as surprised as it is satisfied. She smirks and raises a hand as if to concede. 

Instead, a burst of chakra from the seal on the tama kanzashi launches Sakura backwards, and knocks the tantō out of her hand. Sakura catches her footing, placing one hand to the ground to steady herself as she rises. 

Mito holds out the blade of her yari, pointing it at the discarded tantō between them. 

"Again," she says, chest lightly heaving. 

Sakura's mouth is dry. She steps forward, dropping to one knee to pick up the weapon, eyes never leaving Mito. The sun has risen as they have been sparring, and in this light, Sakura can believe that she is descended of the hurricane god Uzumaki's favored family. 

Sakura lifts her tantō, and she fights.

* * *

They leave for Fire Country a week after Tsubaki is inducted into the position as the Nobi handmaiden. Mito, her cousins, her personal guard, and one hundred and fifty other Uzushio shinobi travel via transportation seals from the beaches of Uzushio to those of Fire Country. 

Mito watches as her people say goodbye to their family members, watches her handmaidens hug their siblings, their cousins, and clan heads. She watches Tsubaki receive a pair of Nobi tama kanzashi from Minako, "For when you finally have hair," the Nobi clan head teases. 

With Marishi at his side, Ashina places the burnished golden crown on Mito's head. It was made for her when she was a child, and was meant to be worn when she was married or became the head of Uzushio, whichever came first. It weighs heavy on her head, and Mito's eyes remain dry when she looks up into her father's eyes. The coronation is oddly grim, not for lack of cheerful shinobi. But it means that Mito is a grown woman. 

Not because she is getting married or because she is leading Uzushio, but because of her sacrifice for the sake of her people. Her life was theirs, and the weight of the crown was the weight of their faith, their need, and belief in her.

Mito looks in her fathers eyes, into the similar crown on his head, and knows that her children, one of them when she has them, will wear a crown like the ones they are wearing now.

With a heavy heart and a refusal to look behind her, Mito steps into the transportation seal, and she leaves Uzushio behind.

* * *

Fire Country is nice enough. It could be worse, Mito reasons with herself. It could always be worse. It is cooler than the island, something that they had all anticipated based on Tobirama's reports of the land. They are dressed suitably for the weather, in slightly thicker clothing in slightly more muted colors.

Mito sits in the carriage, being drawn by two horses. From the little windows, she peers out, gazing over the masses of forests that surround her. So different than Uzushio's colorful tiles and the smell of ocean water on the wind.

Rin, the best horseman of them all, is the one steering the carriage. Hanging on below are Kikue and Momo. Up top, Utano and inside Usagi. Outside, flanking Tobirama, is Tsubaki.

Tobirama and the other two Senju are as quiet as Mito expects them to be. They are solemn upon returning to their war torn country. They are more on their guards than the Uzushio shinobi. Their paranoia runs deep. It is strange to see them behave in such a way. Mito hasn't seen them this on edge since they came to Uzushio in the first place.

Tsubaki is similarly tense. Mito can understand why. In a way that few of the Uzushio shinobi that have journeyed with them are, Tsubaki and the Senju were all war forged. They knew the cost of having your guard lowered for a second too long. And as much as it pains her to see the people she cares about in such a state, Mito is keenly aware that it is a good thing that the four of them are so antsy.

Even before the horses, they are the first to notice when the bandits strike.

It is five days into their trek towards Senju territory. It will only take them another three or four days to arrive considering their large number. Touka and Ginjirou had gotten slightly less tense as they got closer to their home. Tsubaki and Tobirama only seemed to get more agitated as they went.

Mito kept silent, keeping up conversation with whatever handmaiden was on rotation inside of the carriage to occupy her time sitting in the bumbling thing as they covered miles and miles of land from sun up to sun down.

The bandits came at noon, at the hottest point of the day. It is the arrows in the roof of the carriage that notify Mito. Momo immediately throws herself over Mito, slamming her hand onto the latch on the bottom of the carriage.

It springs open, the horses startled and running faster forward as the attack continues. Momo hustles Mito down through the opening beneath the carriage, and with considerable strength, Kikue grabs Mito by the middle. Once they have a secure hold on one another, the two of them release the bottom rungs of the carriage, and roll into the dirt beneath them.

Outside of the carriage, a battle is being fought. 

Mito knew the necessity of bringing precious gems and gold and spices to Fire Country, she knew it. But she also knew it was as good as sending a fish into a den of feral cats to hope that they wouldn't be attacked. Especially by a clearly well coordinated group of shinobi. 

For the most part, they follow the carriage as Rin tries to regain control of it, Usagi beating back attackers with one hand and holding onto the carriage with the other. The gold of Mito's crown must catch attention, because it isn't long before she is rushed. 

Kikue takes point in front of her, keeping off three masked men, while Utano, with the speed of the Raiu on her side, volleys from the bottom of the carriage to Mito to cover her back. 

Mito grimaces, and reaches for the summoning scroll painted into the crane on her kimono sleeve. She pulls her yari from it with annoyance written over the features of her face and prepares to gut a masked man too focused on Utano to notice that Mito has entered the fight. 

Before she can, there is a rush of wind and air that tastes like lightning. Tobirama and Tsubaki are there in the same instant, Tsubaki bringing down a fist against the man's face, and Tobirama's sword cutting through his stomach like a slice of hot bread. 

They land on opposite sides of one another, and share a grin between the two of them. 

"Looks like the Flying Thunder Man works," Tsubaki teases, unarmed except for her fists. 

"You know full well what its title is," Tobirama seethes. 

"Children," Mito interrupts, a little smile on her face. "We have a fight to win."

Tobirama snorts and Tsubaki laughs a bit. 

"Tsubaki, with me," Mito says, easily giving the other woman her back. "Tobirama, I think Rin might need some help if you can spare it."

"Touka's already on it," he replies. "These bandits are good, but we outnumber them. If we have a good show of force, they'll retreat under five minutes."

Tsubaki cracks her knuckles on another bandit's face, his nose turning to slush beneath her powerful fingers. 

"I sure hope so," she replies.

Tobirama disappears after that, heading off into the fray to help. And true to his word, the battle does begin to thin in very little time. It becomes clear that while the bandits are skilled, they are nothing against one hundred and fifty shinobi, trained and armed to the teeth. 

They were damnably clever. The lack of immediate reinforcements occurred because they managed to trap the front and back groups of shinobi of the bridal procession in a large scale genjutsu that muffled all sound and notice of the battle. Where the fighting took place, the Uzushio shinobi simply saw a copse of trees, and they walked around it. 

Mito can feel however, single shinobi one by one dispelling the genjutsu and joining the fray. It won't be long now, not at all until the fight is over. It's almost a shame, because fighting with Tsubaki at her back is the most fun she's ever had. Even though seeing live battle is slightly terrifying, it's almost easy with Kikue and Momo at her side and Tsubaki covering her blind spot. 

Almost. 

* * *

Sakura feels him before she sees him. He's like a lodestone, a north star, a feeling in her gut buried so deep with love and regret and rage and love all over again. She knows his chakra like she knows her own. Like she knows the back of her hand or medical ninjutsu or the birthdays of every person she's ever loved and lost.

What she doesn't know, is _how._

Two manifestations of chakra can’t exist in the same time. They can’t. That is the only reason she’s here, the only reason she made it. Yet here he is. Her senses have never failed her, and Sakura can feel him in her marrow. She knows his chakra like she knows the weight of a kunai, of precisely how much chakra it takes to form and maintain the Mystic Palm.

But he shouldn’t be here.

She doesn't even need to see him to know where she is. She can feel him at her side, pressing against her mind. Kurama is speechless inside of her, and Sakura does the terrible thing. She breaks formation. She can't make herself care. She lets the fight draw her away from Mito's back, and she trusts that one of the other handmaidens will cover her back. 

He's there, fighting with all liquid grace, all terrible precision, all perfect like he always had in their own time. He's thinner than he should be, cheeks a little gaunt, but his eyes are bright and glittering and dangerous. They're a little wild. He's looking for her. He knows she's here. 

He's not one of the bandits, no, but he had felt her chakra signature amongst the Uzushio shinobi, and joined the men in black in this raid. He's looking for her. He isn't killing anyone, just batting off bandits and Uzushio shinobi alike, just enough to convince anyone that isn't looking hard enough that he's on their side. 

But Sakura is looking, and she knows who this man belongs to. Who his allies really are. 

She catches sight of a single purple eye, and her breath goes out of her body. He can't possibly hear her gasp, but his gaze turns to her. He blinks, and then he is in front of her. 

The tears come. Ones that Sakura thought she was finished shedding. A handful of years ago, she would have instantly berated herself for weeping in front of him, for weeping on his behalf, for his sake. But now, her tears aren't because of her failure to love him enough, to bring him home, to convince him that there was something worth loving and living for in Konoha. 

Now it is because she thought Sasuke had  _died_ in her timeline, and yet here he is in front of her. 

"Sakura."

She feels like she's going to choke. 

"We need to hurry."

She huffs out a breath, tries to bottle up her visceral emotional reaction for another day, and finds that she can't. 

"We need to - we need to make it believable," she chokes. 

Because no one will believe that she walked off in the middle of a fight. Even in this lifetime, Sakura has a reputation. 

Sasuke draws his sword, and Sakura draws her tantō, and they fight for one agonizing minute. It's long enough for Sakura to feel as if she's finally come home after years and years of wandering. 

She lets him disarm her, lets him flick her tantō's blade several centimeters deep into the earth. She feigns a faint when he jams his fingers into the pressure point between her neck and shoulder. She lets herself fall into his arms, and when he lifts her, she digs her fingers into the fabric of his black shirt.

She can hear someone screaming for Tsubaki, for the girl that she is not. But all Sakura can think about right now is the fact that Sasuke survived, and that she isn't alone anymore. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i really made y'all wait 60k words for some hand holding. you're welcome.
> 
> this chapter was way too long so i cut it in half. the chapter count for this fic is vacillating wildly as i attempt to reassert dominance over a thing that I am Writing lmao
> 
> tags have been updated, so peep em to make sure this fic is still your cuppa
> 
> thanks for reading!


	11. Chapter 11

She should not be running so far away from the caravan, should not have the sea roaring in her ears, should not have unnecessary blood on her spear. 

Mito has never seen real battle before. Not the kind her cousins have seen, the spies in Fire Country. She has only ever experienced the loss of her brother, and even then, that was a tangible one. She had seen him die.

Seeing someone _take_ Tsubaki, not kill her, but  _take_ her is infinitely worse. 

Mito is not naive. She is not foolish. She knows what bandits take women for. And the thought of Tsubaki, the orphan and the widow, being bested, being dragged back to a forest or a cave or a mountain, to be made into a victim for whatever terrible delights the man that took her for his pleasure has in mind, makes Mito see red.

So she runs.

She is fast, but she is not faster than Tobirama. Not with his stupid new technique, the one that he built with her and with Tsubaki. Tsubaki who is now gone.

He stands in front of her, hand on his sword, ready to deflect a strike from her spear should she try to engage with him to press on her mission. His eyes are not stony, and they aren't sympathetic either.

Mito sidesteps him, tucking her blade down against the earth; she will not hurt him. Even now, she has a mind for politics. Sh knows that if she harms her cousin, if she harms her betrothed's younger brother, there will be hell to pay.

That man, that dark haired man, the one who took Tsubaki, he had some kind of jutsu. Mito had never seen anything like it before in her life. It was like he had been there, striking out at her one moment, and in the next, they had disappeared. Could it have been fuinjutsu? Or was it a kind of advanced shushin? 

"Mito."

Tobirama dogs her steps, gets in front of her, but does not invade her space. He is polite. Even now, he is doing his best to be kind. Or at least to be civil. Mito has lived with Tobirama for some months, and she knows his restraint when he shows it to her. 

"She is a _Handmaiden_ ," Mito spits. "She has sworn her life to protect mine."

"And she has lived up to her solemn promise."

Mito sees red. With an idle had, she draws a finger down the body of her spear, and a burst of chakra like ozone and war shoves Tobirama further away from her. 

"You broke our _bread_ ," she says, nearly shaking with her rage and with a grief so sudden it almost takes her by surprise. "You _learned_ our ways. You _know_ you have no right to speak of her the way you do."

Tobirama regains his footing, making no indication that Mito's show of force has impacted him. His face is cold. Colder than Mito has ever seen it up until now. 

 _'So this is Senju Tobirama,'_ she thinks grimly.  _'Secondborn and last surviving son of Senju Butsuma.'_

"She is one person," he says. "You are the one promised to my brother, and you are the one whose safety is paramount. If Tsubaki is strong enough, she will return."

"We are in unfamiliar territory!" Mito barks. "She has no map! She is not a sensor! And you would let her be stolen? Taken to - to who knows where, to have who knows what done to her?" 

She does not raise the blade on her spear, but her grip on the staff gets hard enough to blister. She feels no killing intent of her own, but she knows that Tobirama will not hesitate to strike her down if she raises a weapon to him. 

"Is this what the Senju are? What they have become?" she asks, eyes narrowed. "Willing to accept the loss of a loyal comrade, without so much as a  _thought_ going into their retrieval?" 

"Mito."

"It is no wonder why you have no allies. Why your brother was so quick to return a marriage proposal to Uzushio. No one would marry into this family. No one would ally with this family. Loss means  _nothing_ to you."

Then, there it is, the killing intent. Directed at her, oppressive and heady, making bile rise in the back of her throat. It does not serve to frighten her. It only edges her on. 

"You know nothing of my family," Tobirama says, voice low and serious. "I would advise you not to let your feelings regarding your handmaiden to cloud your judgment."

Mito raises her spear. 

"The Uzumaki are not ashamed to pride love over all else," she says, through gritted teeth. "Step aside."

Tobirama raises his sword.

"If you will not return with me, I will bring you back by force."

The sea is roaring in Mito's ears, and it is thundering in her blood. She wonders if this is what her ancestor, Masayo felt, when she stood against the clans of Uzushio in their constant battling, knowing they were her blood. 

Mito lowers herself, pushing her left foot further behind her. Tobirama's bright red eyes narrow, and he adjusts his grip on his sword. 

Before they can launch themselves toward one another, Kikue is between them. Then Usagi, and Rin, and Utano, and Momo. They stand, weapons raised, backs to Mito, saying nothing, prepared to fight this battle for her. Usagi's hand slips behind her back, and in an adapted field sign language, tells her to be still. 

In the same breath, Touka and Ginjirou flank Tobirama. 

"We are two days from Senju territory," Ginjirou says, voice flat. "We do not know where these bandits hail from. Regrouping is the best option, before sending out a retrieval party."

Tobirama lifts out of his stance, and sheathes his sword. It makes Mito's blood boil; she is standing behind five women all armed to the teeth and ready to beat him back and he is disarming himself. 

"It is the best course of action," Tobirama adds, with a certain amount of bite, "to protect  _the rest_ of your people."

Mito opens her mouth to speak, but Usagi remakes the sign for stillness. Her spear feels like it will snap beneath the pressure of her hand. She wants to unravel the seal on her clavicle, the Byakugō, just to see what she could do to this terrible cousin of hers. 

"While the Uzumaki may be willing to put one life above all others, the Senju know well the necessity of protecting the many even at the expense of the few."

Tobirama's voice is cool as the shade the dense forests provide. It is nothing at all like the heat of Uzushio, the climate that burns in Mito's blood. She bites the inside of her cheek, well aware that if she speaks again, she will say something that will ruin the alliance that her parents have worked to create. 

Tobirama looks at her like a stranger. Mito looks at him like an enemy. He leaves, Ginjirou staying at his side. Touka holds back, if only fora moment. But it is clear she agrees with her cousin. 

"We will send someone for her," she says, sympathetically. "But your safe passage to Senju territory, and your marriage to Hashirama is paramount. I'm sorry."

She goes. 

Rin and the handmaidens lower their weapons, and Momo and Usagi go to flank Mito. They help her put away her spear, and they right her rumpled dress. Momo does not speak, and Usagi lets her steady hand on Mito's arm do all of the talking. 

Quietly, Rin takes point, Utano and Kikue coming up at the rear. They make formation, and none of them comment on Tsubaki's absence at Rin's side. Directly in front of Mito, ready to take a blow. To defend. 

Mito stands there, in a foreign nation with only her handmaidens, already hollow with loss. 

* * *

She can't stop touching him. His hands, his thin face, his too long hair, tugged back behind his head in spiky ponytail reminiscent of Madara's, but Sasuke's face is soft enough so that he looks achingly like Itachi.

For some time after Itachi's death and resurrection, Sasuke had hated for his hair to become too long. Itachi had worn his hair long like his mother, Sasuke told them, against their father's wishes. Looking too much like the two of them had been an ache so sincere that Sasuke often nearly cut himself in an attempt to keep it short. 

But as the fighting raged, as Kaguya insisted that his chakra belonged to her, that she was his son, leaving his hair long as an affirmation of his Uchiha blood. He was not Kaguya's scion. He was Uchiha Mikoto's son, and Uchiha Itachi's little brother. He belonged to no one else. 

And now he is before her. Obviously malnourished and with chakra depletion that would put anyone other than the two of them, other than other survivors of their war into a coma and then into a coffin. 

He humors her, she knows it, because he has always been indifferent to her touch. But the time he must have spent without her in this strange world must have done something to him, because when he looks at her, his one black eye goes red with tears. 

Sakura tears off her eyepatch and opens Obito's eye, so she can remember him. Alive. Whole. Exhausted and running on fumes, but all in one piece. 

"I thought you died," she whispers, hands trembling.

Her light touches are all laced with soft Mystic Palm chakra. She heals scrapes and burns, eases the knot of tension Sasuke always holds in the forearm of his primary sword hand.

"How?" she breathes.

"I saw you go."

Sakura thinks back to that day, to her chakra pouring into the seal, to knowing that there wasn't enough, that there would never be enough, and that if the seal didn't spit her out unharmed, the legion of Zetsu and the goddess at their head would do the same.

"I don't understand."

Sasuke points to his Rinnegan eye.

"I tried to get to you. I turned when I heard Naruto -,"

"Naruto."

Sakura chokes on the name. When was the last time she said it aloud with someone who _knew_ the boy? The man? The hero? Who knew his blue eyes, bright as the sky at noon, or his insatiable appetite, and his clever traps? When was the last time she talked about someone who knew him?

Sasuke shakes his head. The sob that comes out of Sakura is an animal sound, low and mournful. What time had there been to mourn his loss? What time had there been to believe he was dead?

Childishly, even though she had told herself it was better to assume both of them were lost to her, Sakura had believed that somehow, they both survived. How could they not have? These boys, _her boys_ that had torn the world apart for each other? That looked up at a goddess and thought, 'Yeah, we can take her'? How could those boys have not survived the impossible today, when they had done it countless times before?

"She pierced him through the seal," Sasuke says, voice far away even though he is terribly close. "She was trying to extract Kurama first."

That was how, wasn't it? How Kurama's chakra ended up in Sakura's Byakugō. Naruto had known, of course he had, even when he was dying, that he needed to ensure that the rest of Kurama's chakra was out of Kaguya's reach. 

So he gave it to her. It wasn't an accident, or the luck of fate. He had trusted her, even as he was dying. 

She does not know that she has fallen to her knees until Sasuke crouches down in front of her. She looks up at him through the tears in her eyes, and sees the same agony reflected in his. She reaches out and grabs him, for good this time, and drags him towards her in a hug fierce enough to break them both. 

They hold onto each other for a very long time. Sasuke had always been indifferent when she touched him affectionately; towards the end, he preferred her love taps, the ones that could level mountains. But he loved it when Naruto hugged him, or reached for his hand. 

"How," she asks, breath shaking as she cries. "How did you see me?"

He pulls back to look her in the face as he speaks. 

"My Amenotejikara can move me within a certain range," he says. "When I saw Naruto go down, I took Kaguya's place to get the Ash Bone out of him."

But Sakura had already been gone by then, or at least she had been disappearing. She had heard him howling, seen Kaguya pierce him, but instinct had opened her Sharingan and had torn her out of that timeline. 

Without Sakura there, no one in the world could have healed that wound, or could even have attempted to. 

"He told me to go after you."

Sasuke's voice has dropped to a whisper. 

"I burned him."

Sakura holds her breath. 

She had nearly killed Sasuke for using Amaterasu on Ino. She had needed to be separated from him for days after that, hadn't been able to really forgive him for months. Had been able to look past it for the sake of survival, but still had been livid, still had been hurt afterwards. 

She cannot imagine what it must have taken for him to do the same to Naruto. 

"There was nothing left. Then the Zetsus came. The seal was still charged. The two of you put enough in for more than one person. So I followed you."

Sakura swallows, and lays her hands on Sasuke's arms. He only shudders. 

"He told me to go after you."

She's never seen him cry. She's seen him enraged and in deep quiet sorrow. But she has never seen him weep. It is awful to be there, in the forest, crying in tandem with the only person she has left in the world. 

"But how are you here?" she asks when he has collected himself. "Here with me, right now." 

Sasuke shrugs.

"I ended up on the mainland instead of on Uzushio. Invading the island to find you would have been a bad call. So I went further inland and started hunting Black Zetsu."

Sakura perks up at that, reaching up to wipe the still warm tears off her face. 

"Did you find him?" 

Sasuke nods. 

"He sent the White Zetsu after me. I retraced their path back into Fire Country," he says. "I know Black Zetsu is with the Uchiha. We just need to get into their territory."

A smile curls over Sakura's lips.

"We?" 

Sasuke places his hand on the back of Sakura's head, and presses their foreheads together. Sakura places her fingers carefully on the back of his head, and looks into his mismatched eyes. 

"We make quite the pair, don't we, Sasuke?"

He smirks at that, and the expression is warm as it was in the war, when they finally figured out how to be close to one another. It makes her feel warm. Safe in a way she hasn't felt in a very long time.  

He flinches. And all of it falls apart. Sakura frowns.

"What's wrong?" 

He shuts his eyes, doing the thing he's always done and hiding his pain. 

"Don't," she says. "You know better. You'll make it worse."

Sasuke sucks his teeth, and opens his eyes. 

"There's a reason only you were supposed to come back."

Sakura swallows, but her mouth feels incredibly dry. She focuses her chakra back into her palms, willing them not to shake. She shuts her eyes and focuses on his body. The integumentary system, the skeletal, and the muscular, down to the synapses that fire as she touches him. It's only when she digs deeper, and assesses his tenketsu that she finds the terrible thing she's looking for. 

Sasuke's chakra is fleeing his body. 

"It belongs to Madara in this time," he murmurs. 

It's like a slow unstoppable bleed. There is no way for Sakura to forcibly close Sasuke's tenketsu. All over his body, they're all at least thirty percent open and beneath her touch, she can feel them continue to dilate. 

"It was better near Uzushio, but the further I get into Fire Country, the closer I get to the Uchiha, the worse it gets."

It's trying to return home. 

"A transplant," Sakura says, desperate to solve the problem. "You can have mine, I'll give you as much as I can, I can match our frequencies - It'll be okay, understand? It'll be okay."

He places a hand on top of hers, and she notices that the tremor in it is terrible. It's almost as bad as how Tsunade used to describe her own shaky palms. 

"You know what happens when a person loses all of their chakra, Sakura."

Not exhaustion, but depletion. Filling and emptying the reserves worked the same way as building muscle did. But the same way you worked a muscle without breaking it, the chakra reserves were strengthened. But if the reserves were broken, and pushed past their ability to refill -

That was death. 

Every living creature had chakra. Shinobi, yes, but civilians, and dogs, and trees, and rivers. Anything that lived had it; sometimes they had enough to manipulate, and the ability to control it, and sometimes they didn't. But only dead things had no chakra. 

"Kurama," Sakura breathes. "I'll - we'll put Kurama in you. He fed Obito's Sharingan when I was too weak to, he can fill your tenketsu. If we do it soon, before all of your chakra goes back to Madara, maybe - "

"Do you know anyone who can perform the Eight Trigrams Sealing Style?"

Sakura opens and then closes her mouth. The damn thing hadn't been invented yet. There had been no need for it in this timeline. 

"I can ask Kurama, he'll remember -,"

"And when we restore the Kurama in you to the one of this time?" he asks, tilting his head. "That was the plan. And after that happens, then what?"

 _Damn_ the entire plan! What had been the point? Naruto had seemed so sure at the time. He had thought that if the bijuu, starting with Kurama, had their personhood recognized, that would have been enough to stop all of it.

He had been convinced that if someone from this far back could make friends with Kurama and his eight siblings, then the rest of the world would set itself to rights. The fox would not harm those he called his friends. And if the Kurama inside of Sakura coalesced with the one of this time, then he doubly would not. And if Kurama communicated telepathically with the other bijuu, that solved the rest of the problem. 

Sakura — Sakura had known this whole time that, that had been what Naruto had hedged his bets on. She had settled hers on making Senju Tobirama a better shinobi, on saving the life of Uchiha Izuna, of destroying Black Zetsu and the Gedō Mazō. But Naruto's plan had gone out of the window. 

And now that she thinks about it, she knows she cannot deny him his dying wish. She wants to fight it, wants to tell herself that if it's to save Sasuke's life, Naruto would forgive her anything. But where would that leave Kurama? And where did that leave Naruto's sacrifice?

Sakura digs her fingernails into her palms sharp enough to draw blood. 

"I'm not going to lose you again."

Her voice is so quiet even she hardly hears it. His hand is gentle on hers, and she doesn't notice until now that he is holding it. Threading their fingers together. She squeezes his hand. 

"I can't let that happen, do you understand me?" she asks, voice wavering. "Not after I just got you back. Not again. I'm  _not_ going to let you die."

She drops his hand, and punches him hard on the chest. 

"You hear me?"

He softens at that. Imperceptibly, but Sakura sees it. Obito's Sharingan sees it. 

"We need to get into Uchiha territory, we'll _get_ into Uchiha territory," she says. "You got a plan?"

Sasuke lifts an eyebrow at her; it makes Sakura laugh. A wet laugh, ragged and in the back of her throat still from her crying. 

"Yes, I have a plan." 

"Alright then."

She pulls back, rolls back on her heels, and rises to her feet. Sasuke watches her, smirking as he does. He stands, dusting off his trousers as he does. 

He doesn't have to say that the further they get into Uchiha territory, the weaker he will become. They can't lure Black Zetsu away from the Uchiha; he will only send White Zetsu to slow them down, he's already shown him that much. No, they had to lance this cancer at the root. 

And that meant that sooner or later, Sasuke was going to —

"We've got work to do."

* * *

Mito is not very much like the reports that Ginjirou had sent back, or the descriptions of her character that Minako provided. Both of them had marked her cool head, her even temperament, even her predilection towards silence.

All of that had told Hashirama that his bride to be was similar in personality to his brother, which told him that it would probably be easy to get along with her. He had years of practice reading Tobirama's silences under his belt. It would only take time to get learn Mito's.

But she is colder than anticipated.

When she and the caravan of Uzushio shinobi arrive, Hashirama is dressed as resplendently as the Sonja's current situation will allow to meet her. The elders are out, dressed similarly, and all of Senju territory is alert to the new arrivals.

They are also very aware of the bound injuries, and the small cracks, the jewels chipped from the carriage that his betrothed arrives in.

Tobirama, Touka, and Ginjirou approach first. Aware that there will be time to hug his brother later, Hashirama extends his arm. Tobirama takes it, squeezing lightly at his elbow. From Ginjirou's reports, Tobirama had been in good spirits when he was in Uzushio. It appears that such high moods have lowered now that he has returned home.

"Ani-ja," Tobirama says, perfunctory. "There was an attack. We have suffered no fatalities."

Hashirama's eyebrows lift, and his gaze flickers from his brother to where the carriage has stopped, and attendants are helping Uzumaki Mito out of the carriage. Hashirama is sure of one thing; she is lovelier than her portraits.

She does not look like she has just been a part of a battle on the road to Senju territory. In fact, she looks pristine. Her red hair is pulled severely out of her face into two high buns. From either of them hang slim black hairpins where rectangular pieces of fuinjutsu flutter in the breeze. On her bangs are three dark gold clips, the exact same ones he had seen in Minako's portrait of Mito. On her head is a dark gold crown.  

She is dressed beautifully, all in white and teal. At her side are five attendants, women dressed similarly but with less grandeur. Each of them have different hair ornaments; combs, clips, pins, and the like.

They all keep their eyes down, and they stay very close to Mito. The only thing they do not do is take up formation. Hashirama considers that; these must be Mito's guard, her handmaidens as they were called. They were unarmed, and performative in their docility. Which meant that Touka had probably told them about the Senju elders views on women, and they had accommodated accordingly.

It would worry anyone else. Anyone who had not grown up, seeing Touka fight tooth and claw to even be allowed on the front lines. As it is, Hashirama is grateful that his betrothed has brought people she can trust with her into foreign territory. It was wise of her not to place her safety solely into a stranger's hands.

She was very much like Tobirama, indeed.

His brother comes to stand at his side as Mito and her handmaidens approach. When they are within speaking distance, Mito bows politely, her handmaidens dipping lower at the waist than she does.

"Elders of the Senju clan, my betrothed," she says, voice low and soft, "I am sorry to trouble you so soon after my arrival. But my people are weary from travel, and my handmaidens are in need of rest from the battle. Please excuse us to our quarters. We would be honored to entertain you in the morning."

It is not a request. It is a demand. And so soon after her arrival. Mito rises from her bow with all the regal bearing of a queen, and not of a foreigner whose men are battle weary, and are dwarfed by the entirety of the Senju. 

The elders narrow their eyes at Mito, suddenly unsure of this woman whose guard is meek, but who herself clearly is not. 

Hashirama speaks before his elders can say anything terrible. 

"We can only imagine how tired your people are, Mito-san," he says, smiling kindly at her. "My men will show yours to their lodgings, and if you will follow me, I will show you to yours."

"Thank you very much, Hashirama-san," comes her clipped reply. 

Her face betrays nothing. She is impassive, her hands tucked into her wide white sleeves. Hashirama nods to a cousin at his left, who begins to guide the Uzushio shinobi to the quarter recently prepared for their arrival. Hashirama extends his arm and turns, to guide Mito towards the addition he recently added to his own home. 

She's very much like Tobirama, indeed. 

* * *

She does not speak to him at all that first night, except for pleasantries. The only moment she made something approximating a facial expression was when he showed her that she had her own private rooms, and her handmaidens had adjoining ones. She had thanked him, as had her guard, and they immediately retired.

Hashirama breathed out through his nose, recently dismissed by his bride-to-be. Tobirama had already gone ahead to change out of his traveling clothes, so he headed to his brother's room in search of advice.

He knocks politely on the wooden frame, and Tobirama pulses his chakra so that Hashirama knows it's alright to enter. He moves the sliding door open, steps in, and then shuts it behind himself.

"From Ginjirou's letters, I supposed that she was a more talkative version of you," he says gamely, "though now I'm wondering if the Uzumaki refused to give her up, and you just put a henge on one of your shadow clones."

"As if I would spare you the pain of rejection," Tobirama scoffs, dragging a towel over his wet hair. "You're too used to getting what you want, firstborn."

"So cold, otouto," he returns, crossing the room towards his brother. "I would have thought the island air would warm you up."

Tobirama snorts, and rubs at his hair with his towel. Hashirama looks out at his sparsely decorated room, noting his desk, already covered with the notes he has brought back from Uzushio. 

"Maybe the cooler air here has chilled Mito-san's feet," Hashirama muses.

Tobirama sucks in a breath, and Hashirama's eyes cut to his brother. Tobirama speaks in breaths; in sighs and in pauses. He is very articulate, Hahsirama's brother, incredibly well spoken. But he always says the most when he is only breathing. 

"What happened when the caravan was attacked?" 

Tobirama lets out an annoyed breath, but reaches up to pinch the bridge of his nose; he's agitated, but not very. 

"One of her handmaidens was taken by a bandit."

Hashirama's eyes widen. That was right, wasn't it? Ginjirou's reports said that there had only been five handmaidens initially, that the last, the Nobi handmaiden hadn't been chosen yet. But that had been earlier. They had received word that a girl called Tsubaki had been chosen. 

A war child. A former vassal of the Senju, brought back into their fold. Whirlpool by her own hand, perhaps, but Fire by her making. 

"We need to send out a retrieval party," Hashirama says.

Tobirama's eyes flicker over Hashirama's shoulder. They settle on the door for some time. Hashirama gets that strange feeling he gets when Tobirama expands his sensory abilities, like a cat brushing against his calf, except the cat is made of chakra and is also his brother. 

"Who are you worried is listening to us?"

Tobirama looks back at him, and tugs his towel down over his ears. 

"No one now," he replies. 

"What is it about retrieving this girl that has you on edge?"

Tobirama grits his teeth, fingers digging into the towel around his neck. 

"She knows Uchiha ninjutsu," he says, each word like a weight he does not want to pry from behind his teeth. "The Grand Fireball."

Hashirama doesn't balk. He folds his arms across his chest, and sticks his thumbnail between his teeth. 

"You've seen her perform it."

"I have."

Hashirama sighs. He rubs his forehead, pulling back a few loose brown hairs. 

"I suppose this is why you did not pursue, or why you did not send word ahead that you were attacked. You hope she stays gone."

Tobirama looks at the ground for a moment, thinking. Then he raises his head. 

"She was a powerful user of fuinjutsu. Very keen in battle. Every bit a war child if her story is to be believed," his younger brother says. "But she may have been more trouble than she was worth. No outsider knows the Grand Fireball technique."

"You've considered the possibility then, that she was not an outsider?" 

"She has pink hair, and one green eye," Tobirama says, voice edging on frustration. "Her chakra is strange. Bright as an Uzumaki's, bright as all the Uzushio shinobi. She looks more like an Uzushio shinobi than an Uchiha. Dark coloring is dominant. If she had their blood, she would show it."

"You think she stole the jutsu, then?"

"That is one of my more mild theories," Tobirama huffs. "If she uses it in battle against the Uchiha, it will encourage them to continue fighting rather than to stop. They do not take lightly to mimicry."

Hashirama snorts at his brother's joke. The impolite sound makes the edges of Tobirama's mouth quirk upwards. A little victory. 

"What are your more extreme thoughts?" Hashirama asks. 

"She could have been married to an Uchiha, and they could have died," he says. "I doubt she is a spy. No Uchiha allied spy would make such a mistake."

Hashirama hums, popping the knuckle in his right thumb and then his left. 

"You said she only had one green eye," Hashirama murmurs. "Did you think I didn't notice?"

Tobirama sighs. 

"Of course not."

The idea that someone could steal an entire Sharingan eye was preposterous. There was no way for it to be done safely. The eye could be taken, but how could it be implanted? Medicine simply wasn't at that state. Hashirama had seen Tobirama's incessant attempts at creating a form of medical ninjutsu, and most of them had failed.

The Uzushio shinobi were said to have medical fuinjutsu, but they had only just arrived, and Hashirama had not had the chance to ask his brother if he had learned any while he was away. 

Besides the fact of the sheer impossibility of the procedure, was the impossibility of getting close enough to an Uchiha to grab their Sharingan. The doujutsu only occurred in their most powerful members, and even then, it showed up mostly in their main family. Madara and his brother both had it, but outside of their first cousins, the Sharingan was rarer still than the Byakugan was among the Hyūga. 

To get a Sharingan eye out of an Uchiha meant besting one of the clan's elite. No war child without a proper education could do that, much less rip out their own eye to provide a space for the new one.

"I'll task one of our more personable cousins to discuss medical fuinjutsu and ninjutsu with the Uzushio shinobi," Hashirama says, measuring his words. "It is always best to keep your ear to the ground, even for a theory so extreme as this one."

Tobirama seems to weigh something in his mind. He opens and closes his fists before raising a hand to run through his damp hair.

"It's only a hunch," he says. 

Hashirama narrows his eyes; Tobirama has fantastic intuition. He's always thought that his abilities as a sensor could even pervade into sensing other people's emotions. He always knew when Hashirama was in a sour mood, or when the elders were plotting something. To hear him pass something off as 'a hunch' was odd to say the least.

"She and Mito were very close," Tobirama adds, explaining. "It will be difficult for your betrothed if one of her dear friends is killed by the Uchiha for theft of any kind."

The Uchiha killing an Uzushio shinobi would make things difficult indeed. Hashirama wasn't too sure about the way that the Uzushio shinobi operated; from what he understood, the Uzumaki were much more egalitarian, while the Senju were deeply patriarchal.

Where Uzushio had one ruling family and six others to temper its power, the Senju had only the clan head and the elders. Where the Uzumaki favored their daughters but treated their sons with respect, the Senju disregarded their daughters in favor of their sons.

The fact of the matter was that Mito might have been expecting a measure of control over the shinobi that she had brought with her. And if the Uchiha killed one of her own, and Mito wanted blood in return, that meant an extension of the fighting and not its end.

"Do you think it will come to that?" 

Tobirama shrugs. 

"The Uzumaki," he begins, carefully choosing his words, "they love singularly, and very deeply. They are like the Uchiha in that way."

"Are you willing to bet on that?" 

Tobirama levels him with a look that Hashirama returns with great ease. They have always been close, have always been able to read each other. Times like these, Hashirama is both grateful and annoyed by it. 

"She's a valuable ally," Tobirama says, "but we can survive without her."

"Even if she is truly a lost vassal of the Senju?"

That makes Tobirama start. 

"If she is ours," Hashirama says, "regardless of whether or not she claims us, then we must find and bring her back."

"And if her left eye is what we think it might be, will you pluck it from her head yourself?" Tobirama asks, teeth bared. 

"I will do whatever is best for the Senju," Hashirama says slowly. "And for the Uzushio shinobi as well."

Tobirama scoffs, folding his arms. 

"The elders won't give a sparrow's beak for one girl," Tobirama insists. "They'll want the marriage to occur immediately. They'll want the Uzushio shinobi acclimated to Senju fighting techniques so we can pull tired soldiers from the front. They will not want to waste resources on one person, and a woman no less."

"And if this woman is one of our clansmen?"

"We have no proof," Tobirama bites. "She has no name other than the one she was given on Uzushio. She does not know who her parents are."

"If they were ours, then the least we owe them is to find their daughter."

"And what if she should not be found?"

Hashirama lifts an eyebrow.

"Are you telling me as my brother," he asks, "or as my trusted councillor, not to send a search party out for Nobi Tsubaki?"

They are quiet for a moment, as Tobirama prepares his answer. 

"As your trusted councillor."

Hashirama forces a smile; it's much worse than being told as a brother.

* * *

They do not send a search party for Tsubaki. Mito is told that they cannot justify sending out a team in no discernible direction for a single woman. Mito is tempted to say that she will send her own shinobi after Tsubaki, but she knows that a reckless show of independence will lose the Senju elders to her. She must appear as docile, as defanged as her handmaidens have made themselves up to be. Only after she has their trust can she show them how the women of Uzushio rule.

The entire two days to Senju territory, Mito had held onto Momo's hand in the carriage, and Rin's when they slept. Neither of them wrote stories on her palm like Tsubaki had. Mito tried her damnedest not to make them wrong for it, and she retold herself the stories of the hero Naruto and the Slug Princess Tsunade until she fell asleep.

Utano had looked at her as she helped her bathe in a ravine on the first day after Tsubaki's loss. Had gotten closer and lowered her voice to speak. 

"You said you love her."

Mito did not still, even as Utano carefully poured a handful of water over Mito's head to wash her hair. 

"I love her as I love you," Mito replied, measuring her breath so that it did not hitch even as she said it. "As I love Momo, and Kikue, and Usagi, and Rin. As I love all Uzushio shinobi."

Utano looked at her, gaze soft and sad. 

"I don't believe you," she said. 

Two weeks after Tsubaki is stolen, Mito marries Hashirama. The entire affair would have been a grand and beautiful celebration on Uzushio. There would have been hollering, screaming even, and noisemakers and firecrackers.

There would have been fish cooking on the beach, Mito's Uzumaki cousins bringing in clams and mussels while the Nobi and the Tatsumaki saw over a roast pig. There would have been music. Laughter. Noise, noise everywhere; from the ocean, from little children, noise all infectious and bright. 

Mito's wedding to Hashirama is quiet as a graveyard in comparison. The Senju are very somber, and very reserved. They offer their polite congratulations. Mito wears her crown, and does not let their silence, their stony lack of color and noise and joy drag her to their same level. She is Uzushio, and she will not be cowed. 

Her shinobi, bless them all, they bring her gifts. Small tokens, well-wishes. Things they had brought with them all the way from home to give to Mito for her wedding day. When she sits to dinner with the Senju on her wedding night, her shinobi bring those gifts to her and place them in front of her at the table. She does not weep over this taste of home until much later. 

Nearly all of the wedding things she brought with her from Uzushio were not to the taste of the Senju. They acquiesced to her only on one dish, karashi mentaiko and rice. It was too spicy for the tastes of the Senju, but every Uzushio shinobi looked down at the fish with eyes full of home and ate. 

In that same fortnight, Mito's shinobi are trained to fight alongside the Senju. She oversees much of this, in that she watches. She takes careful notice of the way that the Senju prefer doton and suiton techniques, how they are strong with bukijutsu, kenjutsu in particular. She has Momo ferry messages to Touka, who has the ears of both Senju brothers; she suggests augmentations of fuinjutsu to bolster the Senju's natural abilities, and she suggests partnerships of certain Uzushio shinobi with certain Senju ones. 

The Hisame have a difficult time acclimating, because the Senju are not used to disabled shinobi being able to fight. The Senju shinobi are respectful however, when Usagi's cousin Houta is victorious in a two-on-one spar. 

In that small way, it is not all bad. 

She supposes that she should be grateful that Hashirama is so kind. With his magnificent Mokuton, he had built homes for the Uzushio shinobi, had added on a wing to his own residence to accommodate Mito and her handmaidens. 

On their wedding night, instead of walking her to his chamber, he had walked her to her own. Had insisted that she come to him in her own time, when she was ready. That there was no rush. That they should become friends. 

Rin brushes Mito's hair at night, and Utano carefully explains how sex with men  _ought_ to go. It is a lesson that Mito has already had before, but she allows Utano to refresh her. Mito is well aware of what is expected of her here. She is a married woman now, and she will fulfill her duties to her husband's clan. 

Her husband's clan. The Senju elders had not been very happy about that, knowing that she would not by any means become Senju Mito. She was still the only heir of the Uzumaki, and so would any children that she had. She needed to keep her name so that she could pass it down to one of them when the time came to name her own heir. 

Hashirama had asked her about that once, in the days after they were married, when squadrons of Mito's people were being sent out to the front lines to fight and die for her husband's clan. 

"It's different here," he explains, walking her through the small copses of flowering trees in Senju territory. "In nearly all clans, when someone marries into one, man or woman, they take their spouse's name."

Mito walks beside him, her eyes straight ahead. Usagi and Rin are behind them, walking at a much more sedate pace. Out of earshot if they were not shinobi, but well in hearing range because they are. 

Mito does not look at Hashirama because she does not want to like him. She can admit he has an attractive face, but more than that, there is something kind in the set of his eyes. He is one of those rare people that seems sincerely kind. Good. 

She is not naive enough to think that he is incapable of cruelty. All shinobi are. And if Hashirama was raised by the same Butsuma that raised Tobirama, then it was entirely possible that he had a mean streak as wide as his younger brother's. 

But to Mito, Hashirama is incessantly polite. He takes her on these walks, he asks her questions, and takes interest in Uzushio culture. He had been one of the few Senju shinobi that had tried and enjoyed the spicy cod roe. Even Tobirama had flinched at the flavor. 

"My father has not announced his intention of naming an heir other than me," she explains, reluctantly giving up pearls of Uzumaki wisdom. "I am still his heir, so I still bear our name."

"Even though you are so far from home?" he asks.

"Yes," Mito says. "Even though I am so far from home."

"So your children," Hashirama says, looking up at the flowering trees. "Would they be of the Uzumaki or of the Senju?" 

"Custom dictates that the firstborn would be of your clan," Mito replies, hands in her sleeves wrapping around her own forearms. The feel of the flat knives she keeps in her left sleeve, and of the scroll containing her yari in her right makes her feel more comfortable.

"The secondborn would be my heir of Uzushio. They would live for some years with me, then they would return to the island for their education."

Hashirama hums, taking in the information. Mito wonders if this is simply an intelligence gathering operation for him, and if he will be taking all of this back to his elders. It makes her want to tighten her lips. 

"What would happen then, if your father died while you were here, before your heir was born? Would you need to return to Uzushio to rule your people?"

Mito swallows and keeps walking forward. The trees are in full bloom because of Hashirama's Mokuton. They almost seem to defy nature itself, sprouting lush pink flowers. 

"My father has named my mother the de-facto clan head should something happen to him," she replies. "She would rule Uzushio in my stead until I returned."

"Ah," Hashirama says. "So you would go back."

"Without hesitation."

He smiles, and it is a lovely expression on him. He is a handsome man. Though Mito has loved women all her life, she knows that she could have done a lot worse than her husband. 

"You would abandon me, Mito-san?" he asks, a little chuckle in his voice.

"If Uzushio asked it of me," Mito says, forcing herself to stay civil even though she wants to scream, "I would do anything."

Hashirama looks down at her, but he is not condescending or patronizing. Instead, he looks entirely too serious. It is odd, how he can go from jovial to intense in such little time. 

"I believe you, Mito-san," he says. "I am happy to be married to someone with such unwavering resolve." 

Mito spites herself and looks at him. His eyes are dark, darker than hers, and his skin is brown as a nut. He ought to be from Uzushio with his coloring. Tobirama's complexion is much more suited to Fire Country weather. 

"Hey, Mito-san," Hashirama says, smiling again, "I think maybe you and Tobirama were separated at birth."

The statement is so shocking, Mito doesn't have any time to drag her veneer of ice up over her expression. She balks at Hashirama, mouth slightly agape as she does. 

Hashirama barks out a laugh, and the sound makes Mito shut her own mouth. She can feel her face heat up with embarrassment, and she lightly touches a hand to her cheek to assess the damage. 

"Why on earth would you say that?" she asks, wanting to turn away but awfully enamored by his smiling face.

There is something so warm about him. So kind. It is as if everything about him is trying to make her feel safe, without any effort on his part.

"You're both so serious," he says quietly, as if confiding in her. "So stoic, so cool. You're even mean to me in the same way. I think maybe I'm the Uzumaki, and you've been a Senju this entire time."

A smile cracks over Mito's face even though she doesn't want it to. 

"I'll admit," she says, "he does have my father's coloring."

Hashirama nods, rubbing his chin in his hand. 

"I favor my father as well. Tobirama looks much more like our mother." 

"You mean  _our_ mother."

The quip comes easy, and the dry playful lilt of her voice makes Hashirama's eyes damn near sparkle. He's happy. And she's joking. 

"Do you suppose we should confront the elders about this?" he asks, conspiratorially. 

"I don't think it would make a difference, seeing as though we got married already," she replies. 

"You're right," Hashirama says, snapping his fingers. "Wow. You and Tobirama are  _very_ alike." 

"Why?" 

"Because he's right all the time, too."

Mito doesn't roll her eyes, but she does hide a laugh behind her hand. 

"Oh no," she says. "A broken clock is only right twice a day. And there's a reason _I'm_ the older sister."

"Oh?" Hashirama asks. "What's that?"

"Tobirama only _thinks_ he's right all the time," she replies, smirking as she does. "I actually am."

That sets Hashirama laughing again. And it's nice, to hear him laugh. It's nice to hear anybody laugh. The Senju are so stuffy. Even Tobirama had been a hard nut to crack until the Uzushio heat finally got into his bones. 

Hashirama is much easier. It's like he wants to be told a joke, wants to be made to smile. And like he wants everyone else to want to laugh and smile as well. He's  _good_. Good in a way Mito has never encountered before. 

She decides then, that maybe being married to this man won't be so bad after all. That knowledge is still not enough to keep her attention on him when a flower flutters down off the low hanging branch of one of the trees, and dances in the corner of Mito's eye, pink and bright as Tsubaki's hair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> can you believe this chapter was originally gonna be capped at 3k because i couldn't figure out what else to write and yet here we are at double that. i'm a monster and i'm also very sleepy. thank you for reading!


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tags have changed to include dubious consent for this chapter. please bear this in mind going forward.

The storm comes in from Kiri; the rain is cold and relentless. It digs in underneath their clothing, stings their scalps, makes mud too slick to get a decent foothold into. It reminds her of their lives before, when the worst thing they had to complain about was the weather. And that makes her smile.

They run for as long as the rain lasts, which is for weeks. The pelt across Fire Country, killing yellow eyed white bodies as they go. Sasuke's Kusanagi had been snapped in two during the war. Tenten had managed to reforge it into a tantō Sasuke had named Tsurugi and a wakizashi he had called Murakumo.

And though Sakura is reasonably fond of the tantō she had been given before she left Uzushio, Tsurugi is a blade she knows intimately. When Sasuke tosses it to her, she catches it out of the air like she's greeting an old friend.

She has no lightning affinity to course through the blade, but she has her handful of katon and Uchiha born and bred kenjutsu expertise under her belt. She can bring down a wall of fire with Sasuke's tantō, and he calls up lightning as she strikes. 

Fighting at his side feels like coming home. 

They track the White Zetsus all across Fire Country; the longer they pursue, the clearer it becomes that Black Zetsu wherever he is, is sending them on a merry chase to keep them away from Uchiha territory. Sakura can't say she's too upset about it. The more white bastards they kill now, the less they'll have to deal with later. 

"I'm gonna take a wild guess," she says, drawing Tsurugi as an ambush of thirty White Zetsu tries to cut them off from the border of Hot Springs Country. "We're getting close aren't we?"

The White Zetsus have nothing to say to her. They bare their teeth and attack. Sakura grins back at them, and slides back to back to Sasuke as the onslaught begins. 

The rain is a bad place to use katon jutsu, but Sakura has a doton and a suiton affinity. And besides that, she has her fists. She hardly needs ninjutsu when she can put her fist through its stomach to obliterate it. 

These White Zetsu aren't like the ones she and Sasuke fought during their own time. Those ones were enhanced with Yamato's and the Shodaime's DNA, could use the Mokuton, were adaptable.

Sakura didn't like Yakushi Kabuto as far as she could throw him (which was probably around the world and back again), but she had a healthy respect for his abilities as a doctor and as a mad scientist. He had enhanced an already formidable foe on a mass scale like it was nothing.

Yakushi was a clever son of a bitch, but he hadn't been born yet, and this White Zetsu army was nowhere near the one hundred thousand strong it had been when Sakura and Sasuke faced them the first time. 

That much becomes clear when the number of White Zetsus that tries to stop them begins to stagger. At first, according to Sasuke's account, only handfuls had come to attack him. Then thirty at once. Fifty or sixty came when he and Sasuke joined together. 

The largest show of force thus far had been at the border of Hot Springs, and that was only about a hundred strong. If Sakura's own guesses were correct, then there couldn't possibly have been more than twenty thousand White Zetsu under Black Zetsu's current command. 

"Twenty thousand?" Sasuke had muttered, benignly accepting Sakura's attempts to force feed him the few provisions she had on hand when she had abandoned the Uzushio caravan. 

"Right?" she asked, smirking. "That's  _nothing_ compared to their crazy mom."

Sasuke huffs out a laugh at that, polishing Murakumo as he does.

The rain goes on for weeks at a time. Sakura watches Sasuke pretend he isn't shivering, and says nothing. Instead, she gives him half of her own provisions when he isn't looking, or manhandles him into eating more than he usually would. He's resigned to his death in a way that Sakura can't wrap her own mind around. She doesn't understand it, doesn't like it. 

More color comes to his cheeks the further they get away from Fire Country, though if that's because his chakra slows down to make it across the kilometers it takes to get to Madara, or if the rain has given Sasuke a fever, Sakura can't tell. 

"If I sealed you in him, do you think it would work?"she asks Kurama in her sleep, ankle deep in tepid water. 

The fox is the size of a small horse, his nine tails flickering this way and that in the low light of Sakura's mind. 

"He'd need to learn a sealing method, or you'd need to invent the Eight Trigrams style," he replies. 

"I could do that," she says, "I taught Mito."

Kurama huffs. 

"How long did it take you, after you learned the Byakugō for you to have enough accumulated chakra to use it in battle?"

Years. Sakura had basic medical and taijutsu training from Tsunade for three years while Naruto had been away. It wasn't until she turned fifteen and made chuunin that she was allowed to request a contract with Shikkotsu Forest, or to learn the Byakugō sealing method. And even then, it had taken another two and a half years of chakra storage for her to do the kind of damage she had done during the war. 

"But he doesn't need accumulated chakra," she says, pressing on stubbornly. 

Kurama flicks water in her face. Sakura splutters, and uses her sleeves to dry her eyes. 

"A seal like yours gets deeper as more is poured into it," he grumbles. "You know that. If Naruto's idiot formed the seal and then you poured all of me into him, what do you think would happen?"

Like a muscle worked too hard, it would tear. The seal would be made useless, and the strain Kurama's chakra would put on Sasuke's chakra pathway system would be worse than the constant drain happening right now. 

"Your Byakugō was deep enough for this much of my chakra to fit in it," Kurama continues. "That's the only reason you didn't burn out the second Naruto put me in you."

"I could heal that," Sakura says. "I could fix the damage to his tenketsu."

Kurama lifts an eyebrow at her, and looks about a minute away from rolling his eyes and charring her to a crisp on the spot. 

"Yeah," he drawls, "I'm sure that a long term chronic disability like that would be  _great_ for a shinobi like Sasuke. Tell me how it works out." 

It's the closest he'll get to telling her that death is the better option. Sasuke - Sasuke could never adapt to civilian life, not after all he's been through. Needing constant healings would drain him. He had never been the type to rely on anyone other than himself. 

And if he did live, where would he go? Would there be a place for him in this new Konoha? He so obviously had Uchiha coloring, and his Rinnesharingan was proof enough of his blood. But how would he explain that to the Uchiha clan of this time? They loved too fiercely to let any of their clan outside of their territory. Sasuke was an anomaly, and one not easily explained. 

Would he wander forever? Making sure that all of Kaguya's influence had been firmly destroyed from the world? Burned away? That thought made Sakura's stomach turn. For all his blathering and cruelty, Sasuke was his best when he was around other people.

The Uchiha valued family above all else; it was what had started and continued their wars with the Senju, what had fueled Madara's malice towards Hashirama, had made Itachi slaughter all of them to keep Sasuke safe, had made Sasuke try to kill his last living relative to avenge the rest of them. 

Wandering the world alone with less chakra than a civilian of her time would be terrible for him. 

Shinobi with disabilities did not survive, or at least they did not survive well. The Hisame were a startling exception, but one largely born of a small island  that needed to pool all of its resources together to ensure the survival of the collective. If the Hisame existed as a vassal clan of the Senju or the Uchiha, they would not have been so lucky. 

There had been several shinobi during the war that had requested euthanasia, mercy killings, rather than to survive not being able to fight. They saw themselves as burdens. Shinobi with one hand could survive, Naruto was proof enough of that. 

But loss of legs? Of more than one limb at a time? Sight was reasonable, if you were a Hyūga. If even one sense remained for an Inuzuka, they could survive. Prosthetic technology hadn't been reasonably advanced by the time the war began, but Sakura remembers Tsunade's big dreams.

Perfect limb replicas, one with the ability to attach to the user's tenketsu system, so that they could still perform ninjutsu. Painless attachment to nerve endings, the use of chakra to attach and detach the limbs.

Maybe in another time, it all could have come to something. As it was, Tsunade was dead, and her innovations were dead alongside her. 

In this world? Without the medical advances that Sakura was used to? Sasuke's survival was impossible if he wasn't essentially attached at Sakura's hip. And Sakura - Sakura barely expected  _herself_ to live after she ended Black Zetsu. 

And she didn't want Sasuke to die. Which meant that  _she_ couldn't die. At least not yet, not until she figured out a way to keep him alive. 

 _'Yeah,'_ Kurama says as she ducks under Sasuke's arm to ram her tantō into the yellow eye of a White Zetsu that managed to get the jump on him,  _'you've got zero other reasons to live.'_

Sakura grits her teeth, and spares one moment to activate her Byakugō and tear off her eyepatch. Obito's eye spins to life, and in the vaguest red tinge, Sakura tracks the moment the White Zetsu begins to solidify its body into sharp white spikes that aim to impale her. 

She blinks the rain out of her eyes, holds her chakra in her fist, and punches the White Zetsu at point blank range, shattering its spikes and its entire body as she goes. 

 _'Now really isn't the best time,'_ she snaps, ducking as Sasuke places an arm on her shoulder, vaulting over her with Murakumo crackling with lightning. 

_'There's never a good time with you, kid.'_

_'And there never will be,'_ she replies.

She pulls the rain around her into a suiton, and focuses the water around the eldritch abomination of a White Zetsu, all three mouths with eleven yellow eyes. When Murakumo strikes, the massive White Zetsu sizzles, crackles, then burns as Sasuke drives the wazikashi further into its body. 

 _'Nice coping methods you got there,'_ Kurama needles.  _'I'm sure your Yamanaka would be proud.'_

Sakura dissociates right into the bowels of her own mind so suddenly, it startles the both of them. She's holding Tsurugi to Kurama's throat, her other hand bunched up in the thick orange fur of the nine tailed fox. 

"Don't," she seethes, Obito's eye twitching in her skull. 

Her blood is roaring in her ears, and Kurama's eyes narrow. His ears flatten, and his lips curl back in a terrible snarl. The world in Sakura's mind darkens around them, the lukewarm water beneath their feet drying up until they stand in an arid plane, where cosmos flowers poke doggedly through the crusted earth. 

"Be careful who you raise your sword to, kid," Kurama says, the air around them getting more and more dense as he speaks. "You look like you're forgetting who your allies are."

" _Don't,_ " she repeats, holding onto the tantō tight enough to break it or the delicate bones in her hand. "Don't you  _ever_ use her against me like that.  _Ever._ You have  _no idea_ \- you will  _never_ understand -," 

"Sakura!"

Sasuke's voice calls clear as a bell from outside of her mind, and Sakura comes back to herself just in time to get a glancing blow to the stomach for her trouble. It sends her skidding backward, but she rolls with it until she's on her feet. The wound heals itself, and Sakura fights until she can't smell cosmos flowers anymore, until she can't feel the massive energy of a bijūdama scorch the hair on the back of her arms. 

* * *

Two weeks after Mito marries Senju Hashirama, half of her clansmen are sent to the battle front. 

Her Handmaidens pose so beautifully as handmaidens that they are allowed to stay with her. But Mito must watch their cousins, their siblings, their aunts, and uncles to march off into battle with shinobi they have only just met, have only just learn to fight beside. 

It makes her want to scream. 

She sees all of them off the Uzushio way. She has few words prepared, none half so eloquent as that of her mother or father or the other clan heads when they saw off her bridal caravan. But she wears her crown, and her hair is pulled back severely in its two buns, her bangs pinned. 

She blesses all of them to the best of her ability. There is no seawater in Fire Country, and the small amount that each Uzushio shinobi brought with them must be reserved for more dire circumstances. So Mito fills a bowl with a small suiton, and she dips her thumb and forefinger into the water to write the name of Yorokobi on the foreheads of her clansmen before they depart. 

It takes some time, time that the Senju elders quietly insist she is wasting. Mito does not expect them to understand. Fire Country people had only ancestor worship. They had no gods, not like Whirlpool Country does.

It means nothing to them, when Mito closes her eyes and murmurs to her clansmen, "May you always remain in the eye of the storm, and may Yorokobi smile upon you in battle."

Hashirama is as kind as he ever is, but she makes it abundantly clear that she wants space, especially once her clansmen have marched off into battle. She spends more time in the small Uzushio quarter created in the Senju main camp, speaking with her people. It makes her calmer to be there, under the watchful eye of her handmaidens, in the pleasant company of people she was raised with. 

She has nothing to say to Tobirama, and expects it will continue that way. She is well aware that he has his brother's ear, and that regardless of what the elders tell Hashirama, he will look to his brother for good counsel. That much is obvious in the way that the two move around each other, how they are always keen to keep one in the other's sight.

Mito can empathize with that to a degree; she had lost one brother, if she had another, she is sure that she'd be as paranoid about his whereabouts, about his safety as Hashirama and Tobirama are about each other. But it also enrages her, because she is aware that if Tobirama said the right thing, Hashirama would have insisted on sending someone to search for Tsubaki. 

"Placing blame is a dangerous game," Rin says as she brushes her hair one evening. 

Mito is twiddling with a senbon between her fingers; she has had to train in secret since coming to Fire Country. The Senju elders do not like women to know how to fight, and it is clear that they expect her to be pregnant in the coming months.

She has only been able to do target practice in her small quarters, that and smaller katas. She meditates more than she did on Uzushio, focusing chakra into the Byakugō between her collarbones.

She can feel it expand by the day, and she wonders how long it will take before it assumes the stable form Tsubaki's has. Not the twin circles, but as the sharp purple diamond she had painted on her those many days ago. 

And thinking of Tsubaki makes Mito's stomach tighten. 

"Is that so?" she asks, watching the needle as she moves it between her fingers. "It's a good thing I play to win." 

Rin sighs from behind her. 

"You can't play chicken with him forever."

Mito smirks, balancing the senbon on her pinky finger. 

"Can't I?" 

"No, Mito, you can't."

She snorts, and bounces the needle up into the air to catch. Rin snatches it from the air between them and sticks it between her teeth. 

"You're upset, but you have to tread more carefully here," she says. "Play your cards closer to your chest. Make this into a favor Tobirama-san has to return to you later."

"It isn't like he owes me dinner, or money," Mito says, folding her arms across her chest. "He owes me a life for Tsubaki's, Rin. The closest thing I could demand would be Touka's, or Ginjirou's lives in exchange."

"Then bide your time," Rin replies, sitting down in front of her. "Let his debt get heavier, and call it in when you need it most. But it will not do for the clan head's wife to be at such odds with his brother. Not when they are so close."

Rin doesn't have to say out loud that if it comes down to it, Hashirama would pick his brother over her. Mito already knows. 

"It would also be best," she continues, obviously picking her words carefully. "If you assumed that Tsubaki has died."

Mito rises to her feet, pushing a wave of her bright red hair over her shoulder. 

"I don't recall asking your advice on the subject."

Rin stays seated, head bowed, but bright eyes staring up at Mito. Her body posture shouts deference, but her eyes are defiant. 

In most instances, having a close guard that will defend you but will also argue with you is incredibly valuable. The Handmaidens function as a sort of second storm council, one that spends an incredibly large amount of time with the Uzumaki they protect, and therefore become a kind of soundboard for all sorts of political reform that Uzumaki may play to implement. 

They're also the last defense against tyranny. In the Handmaidens vows, in their secret training, Mito is well aware that they are taught of the circumstances in which killing their charge is absolutely necessary. 

Times like these, with her emotions threatening to overtake her, she wishes that Rin and the others were as docile, as benign as the Senju thought they were. 

"You're letting your feelings for her cloud your judgment."

"What feelings?"

"You have been unduly fascinated by Tsubaki since she arrived on the island."

"I was charged to keep an eye on her."

"Your request to learn her fuinjutsu was not part of your duties."

Mito narrows her eyes. 

"Do you think we are blind?" Rin asks, hands folded prettily in her lap. "Do you think we did not see the way you behaved around her? Even in the beginning?"

"That's enough."

"We thought all you needed was to roll around in bed with her, and that would be the end of it. But that never happened. Why? Because you didn't want to fuck her, you wanted to  _know_ her. And that was all the worse, wasn't it?"

"Rin."

"We are not in Uzushio any more, Mito," Rin snaps. "You cannot take a loving-wife here. You have a husband, and a duty to the Senju. You cannot let your infatuation with Tsubaki rule you to the point of damaging the alliance your father worked to broker."

Mito snatches the senbon from between Rin's teeth and throws it so hard into the ground beside them, it nearly disappears into the wood. 

"As the heir of Uzushio," Mito snarls, "and first lady of clan Senju, stop talking before I make you."

Rin shuts her mouth slowly, watching Mito for her next move. 

"Don't presume to tell me what my responsibilities are," Mito continues. "What have you sacrificed for Uzushio? You may take a husband or a wife among the Senju, or among our people. You may choose to bear children or not to. And you may fall in battle, all well within your vows. Of all that you have lost to become my handmaiden, you still have more freedom than I do. You have _choice."_

Mito swallows, her own unhappiness getting the better of her. 

"My body?" she says, lifting a hand to her low stomach. "My _womb_? _More than half_ of it belongs to the Senju. To Hashirama. To his elders."

"I get one child," Mito says, raising a single finger, tears burning at the edges of her eyes. "One child I can raise until they're six, maybe seven. And then, custom  _demands_ that I give them back to Uzushio. I may never see them again."

She stops to take a deep breath, and shudders roughly on the exhale. She straightens out her night clothes, and runs a hand through her hair, free of tangles. 

"The Senju may have my body, but they do not have my mind," she says after she's collected herself. "And I will hold whatever grudge, and foster whatever affections I so please as long as my mind belongs to me, and me alone. And I will not have those affections scrutinized unless they are a direct threat to our people. Am I understood?"

"Yes, Mito-sama."

The honorific makes Mito twitch, but she bypasses Rin and heads toward her own bed. 

When she was a child and she went to bed angry or hurt or in trouble, Yashiro would sneak into her room and hold her hand. 

"Don't worry," he would say, smiling. His shock of white hair would glow in the darkness of her bedroom, his grey eyes glittering as he squeezed her little hand in his. "Tomorrow's a restart. It might not be better, and it might not be worse. It's up to you, and I know you can make it what you want it to be."

As Mito grew older, she recognized the merit in those words. And she recognized their failings. 

* * *

 

"You're going to the front lines," she says, feeling abruptly dazed. 

Hashirama takes his meals with her, sitting across from her at the small table in the more modest dining room in the grand estate he had created for himself, his brother, and their elders. 

"I'm the clan head," he replies, nodding as he sets down his cup of tea to answer her. "But I'm also one of the strongest shinobi the clan has to offer." 

Weeks. Mito has gotten to know her husband for  _weeks,_ and less than a handful of them at that. And now he is leaving, off to die or survive alongside their clansmen. 

"How long will you be away?" she asks. 

She is suddenly grateful that Tobirama takes his meals alone when Hashirama wants to eat with Mito. He is a much earlier riser than his brother anyway; Hashirama rises with the sun, but Tobirama pulls himself out of bed when the moon is still the brightest thing in the sky. 

"As long as it takes," Hashirama says, putting on a game smile to ease her worry.

Mito wonders how many people it has worked on in the past; it does not fool her. That is the smile of a man that knows he may not return for weeks, months, or even at all. 

"And the battle campaign?" she asks. "What are your plans?"

Hashirama blinks at her, clearly surprised by her interest. She has a split second to damn herself for her sudden break in cover. She had done fairly well to appear to him as simple and sweet as she had to his elders, only revealing small truths about Uzushio and her unflinching loyalty to her homeland. 

Her strength in battle, her cunning statesmanship; the true extends of her education as the heir of Uzushio had not yet been revealed to him. 

"We've pushed back the Uchiha with the help of your fuinjutsu," he says. "We're hoping to push them back towards River Country before we start brokering peace talks."

Mito measures the open curiosity on Hashirama's face. Then, she sets down her chopsticks and looks her husband dead in the eyes. 

"You should have me there when you begin them."

His curiosity sharpens, but he does not give her a condescending look of any kind. Rather, he takes another sip of his tea, then sets his cup down again and looks at her, considering. 

"Why is that?" 

"Your father's training regimen is almost legendary," she replies. "It's likely that you never had the time to learn the art of diplomacy, or how to move politically. I don't doubt your intelligence, but I've been tutored in statesmanship since I could form sentences. I'll be good to have at your side."

Hashirama nods, then drums his fingers on the table. 

"I believe you," he begins, "but I do not think my elders would condone having you away from the compound."

Mito wants to throw her chopsticks at him. Instead, she lifts them and quietly resumes eating the boiled vegetables prepared for their breakfast. 

"Of course," she says before she begins eating. 

"When I return, however," he adds, and Mito looks up at him. "When I return, you will have the seat to my right when the peace talks continue."

The seat to his right. Hadn't Minako said the seat to his right was always occupied by Tobirama? The little victory buoys Mito in a way she hadn't expected it to; not because she was in some way replacing his brother, but because he was promising that she had a seat at the table. One it was obvious the Uzushio elders normally wouldn't let her have. 

"Thank you," she says as sincerely as she can. "I will do my best to honor both our families, and the Uchiha as well."

Hashirama laughs at that, and the sound is enough to bring a smile to Mito's own face. 

"Now that," he says, as he starts to eat his miso soup, " _that_ is something the elders definitely wouldn't like."

Mito chuckles. 

"Then it's a good thing I married you and not them."

Hashirama laughs again, and Mito feels better, if only a little bit. It's nice to have an ally in her husband, especially considering the fact that she wants to smash his brother's face in. 

"When do you leave?" she asks, once their laughter has settled into a comfortable silence. 

Hashirama gives her an apologetic smile before he says, "Tomorrow."

The word rings in Mito's ears for the rest of the day. Tomorrow. Tomorrow. He will be gone, will likely  be taking Tobirama with him, and Mito will be left alone save for her handmaidens and her clansmen in the Senju compound.

She comes to the conclusion on her own that if he will be gone for months at a time, if she is being kept purposely in the compound, that the elders are expecting her to become pregnant. The thought doesn't make her stomach sour as much as she thought it would have. 

If Hashirama falls in battle (if, and only if, and a very, very faint if at that) then the clan head position would fall to Tobirama. Mito doubted that the Senju would marry her to the second son; no, that poor bride probably would have to be of a vassal clan, or of the Uchiha if Hashirama's and his dreams of peace got their way. 

Mito would still be bound to the Senju by marriage contract. At least until she bore them a son. And a son it would have to be, wouldn't it, considering the way they viewed women? 

Hashirama had always needed an heir. His brother could not use his Mokuton, so a direct descendant would be a safer bet. That had also likely been part of the reason their marriage contract had been brokered. The Uzumaki had deep chakra reserves, ones that a powerful kekkei genkai like the Mokuton required. 

Besides, the faster she bore a child to the Senju, the faster she would be given a measure more respect from the elders. And with respect came the autonomy to do more of what she pleased, how she pleased.

So she knows what she must do. 

She tells her handmaidens what she plans to do. Rin is silent on the matter. Usagi bites her lips though she clearly does not like the idea. Kikue and Utano tell her to do what she thinks is best. Momo hands her a vial of oil, and promises that on her rotation, she will keep her back to Hashirama's bed when Mito goes to it that evening. 

She uses her spit to open herself, preferring to use Momo's oil when she meets her husband. She starts with her pinky, because it is the smallest and does not bother to reach for pleasure though she knows she can. There is no pleasure in duty, no pleasure in being owned by a family. 

She shuts her eyes, and works at herself until she gets two fingers, and then three. She presses for four in case Hashirama is larger than she expects him to be, and once the stretch is no longer uncomfortable, she draws herself out of bed and leaves her quarters. 

Mito walks down the hallway in silence, following the bright earth-warm feeling of Hashirama's chakra. When she gets to his door, she only flares her chakra before she enters his room. Her husband has been fighting wars all his life; she does not have to guess that he is a light sleeper. 

"Mito?" he murmurs, voice thick with sleep as she shuts the door behind her. "Is there something wrong? Are you alright?" 

"All is well," she whispers, slowly crossing the room to get to him. 

She puts on no airs, pretends nothing. She comes to his bed and sits on it. She places her hand on his thigh, and draws her fingers beneath his sleeping yukata. His eyes widen, and he comes all the way into waking immediately as she does it. His hand shoots out to stop hers, concern in his gaze as he sits up. 

"What are you doing?"

Mito is well aware that Hashirama is too good a man to let their first time laying together happen because of her sense of duty. He would turn her away, would send her back to her room with one of those kind smiles of his, would insist that they could wait, could proceed in their own time. 

So she lies. 

"I don't want you to go," she says softly. "I want to be with you in case I never see you again."

His gaze softens, his hold on her wrist slackening. Mito stomps down the guilt that will threaten to eat her whole if she lets it. She is a politician, so she must be a good actress. 

"Mito," he says again. 

She gets onto her knees, and gently kisses the corner of his mouth. 

"Please," she whispers. "For my sake."

And that at least, is the truth. 

"Okay," he replies. "Okay."

He pulls her into his arms, and his hands are so gentle Mito doesn't know what to do with herself. His hand comes up to cup her breast through her yukata, his other hand rising to cup the side of her face. She sighs as he leaves a soft spread of light kisses along the column of her throat. She tries to think of who he had taken to bed before her to know a woman's body so intimately. 

She leans into his touch and focus on his hands, on his callouses, where the edges of them give the barest scratch against her flesh. She undoes the belt of her yukata and shrugs out of it, eager to have all of it over with. 

The cool air hardens her nipples, and Hashirama's mouth descends to cover one of them. He teases it with his teeth, laving his tongue over it to soothe the hurt. Mito puts her hands on his shoulders and sighs. Hashirama holds her weight easily in his lap, and beneath her, she can feel his cock swell as he touches her. 

One of his hands tracks down, the other fondling the breast he does not kiss. She nearly jumps when that hand dips low between her hips. She lets out a small, "Ah," of surprise, and his hand stills. 

He stops moving entirely, moving his mouth from her breast to look at her. 

"I'm okay," she insists, curling his dark brown hair behind his ear. "I'm okay."

He nods, but he holds eye contact as his fingers slip between her lips and give a hesitant brush over her clit. Mito sucks in a breath, caught between the intensity of his gaze and the thumb that presses against her a second time. The barely there brushes steadily become more consistent, and the more noise Mito makes, the more insistent they become. 

She breaks eye contact, instead pressing her mouth onto his shoulder so she can close her eyes as Hashirama rubs hard circles against her clit. She whimpers into the brown skin under her mouth, baring her teeth to bite down on the skin to muffle the sounds she's making. 

He hisses and she rears back, about to apologize, but Hashirama nuzzles his ear against hers and says, "I'm okay. I like that." 

She nods, and grateful not to have to look in his eyes any longer, she gently puts her mouth back on his shoulder, only biting him when he makes her feel good enough to. She squeezes her eyes shut, and a terrible, invasive thought makes her wonder what it would feel like if this were Tsubaki's fingers, telling stories on her body. 

Mito opens her eyes to evade the vision of a bright green eye and a wicked smile, but the thought sticks with her. And when Hashirama slides his whole palm down so that he can slip the tip of one finger inside of her, she can't help but rock into his touch. 

She thinks of Tsubaki's hands pressing down on her hips, adjusting her form. Hashirama groans, pressing his entire first finger inside, then moving to a second. 

"I'm ready," she whispers against his shoulder. "I got ready before I came."

She moves her hand to the one of his still fondling her breast, and in it she places Momo's vial of oil. 

"I'm ready."

It must do something to him, because he presses a second finger inside of her. The stretch is immediate, but Hashirama moves slow until she's open enough for a third. She can hear him open the vial with his teeth, and his hands leave her to prepare himself.

Mito holds onto his shoulders, squinting her eyes shut. She doesn't want to look down. If there's at least some part of this that can remain a mystery, can remain not real, then there's still a part of her that won't be his, won't be his clan's. 

"Hey."

He rubs his cheek against hers until she looks at him. His gaze is open, guileless, and Mito feels like a monster for doing this to someone so kind. She can't think of a time she could ever tell him about her real intention for coming to his bed on this night. She wants to tell him the truth now, but knows it must wait. She hopes he will forgive him.

"We can stop," he says, cupping her face in his dry hand. "It's okay."

"I know," she replies, turning her face in his hand to kiss at his palm. "I don't want to."

"Alright," he replies. "It won't be pleasant at first."

Mito musters up a measure of bravado and snorts.

"Don't sell yourself short," she says. "I'm stuck with you for the rest of my life."

It makes him crack a smile, and he reaches up to kiss her mouth before he settles his hands on her hips. She breaks the kiss to press her mouth back onto his shoulder when she feels the blunt head of his cock press against her.

She squeezes her eyes shut and wills herself to relax as it breaches her. The discomfort doesn't startle her, but she bears down through it. She's had worse pains, will endure worse pains when she gives birth to their children.

He takes his time, moving slowly as he can until he is fully seated inside of her. He stays still as she adjusts and Mito lets out a steady breath before she rocks against him. It's become clear that he won't do anything until she's ready, so she rolls her hips experimentally. Hashirama's fingers dig into her hips, and he pushes up into her as she moves down against him.

She thinks of Uzushio as they pick up a faster pace, a steady rhythm. She swallows hard and focuses on her people, on her future. When she is silent, Hashirama licks his fingers and attends to her clit until she starts making noise again.

It is against her nature to shout, but she moans and sighs to convince him. There is some pleasure in it, but it is pleasure she holds her heart against. She won't let this make her like him more, won't let this skew her view of him. But he rubs against her until her orgasm hits her like a wave on high tide, and her clenching around him brings him over as well. 

She stays with him in bed that night. He falls asleep first, tracing tender circles onto her cooling skin. It is nothing like Tsubaki's stories. When he falls asleep before her, she holds her hips up so none of his seed will escape her. 

In the morning, he handles her carefully. He rises before she does, but he wakes her with tender brushes of his fingers against her face. 

"I've got to go before first light," he murmurs. 

Mito nods slowly, but she  _tries._ She reaches forward and kisses him. He holds her face in both his hands like she's something precious, and Mito knows that despite his kindness, he will never forgive her for what she did last night. 

She gets out of bed with him, and in the pre-dawn light, she helps him dress as a good wife should. She helps him into his fundoshi, utterly unfazed by his genitals at this point. His hakama and shitagi, kyahan, tabi, and all. She ties down his red plated armor, and places his swords at his side, his katana and his wakizashi. From a pocket in her yukata, she produces one of her gold clips, and uses it to pull back his hair behind his ear. 

"You're an Uzumaki now," she says softly. "Now that you've been with me, you're one of us."

Hashirama touches the clip nestled behind his ear, and kisses her. It's clear he recognizes it as one of hers. 

"You're only borrowing this one until I can get you some proper ones made," she says, trying for a smile. "Make sure you bring it back."

Hashirama nods and tucks her hair out of her face. 

"I promise."

When Mito is finished, and dawn has come, she follows him in her deep green sleeping yukata to the massive Mokuton wooden gates in front of the Senju main camp. Barefoot and nearly naked, she sees off her husband as he lifts himself atop his war horse. She ignores Tobirama, ignores the leering gazes of the elders, and the concerned ones of her handmaidens and her people. 

She watches her husband give a rallying cry, watches the way the early light catches the gold behind his ear where only Mito can see it. She holds her breath, her toes slipping into the cool mud. It has been raining for weeks, and she doubts it will let up any time soon. But with rain came the promise of spring, of new life. She places a hand against her low stomach and prays to Yorokobi for favor enough to quicken her womb.

Mito watches Hashirama go, hair whipping in the air that rises when he and his company go off into war. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> had to add another chapter because this one got to be too gotdamn long :-)))  
> thank you for reading!


	13. Chapter 13

They decide that the Gedō Mazō is only as powerful as whoever wields it. They only need a Rinnegan to summon it, and Sasuke has one of those. If they destroy Black Zetsu, they can destroy the statue in their own time afterward. They press forward into Uchiha territory. 

They skirt past the border, fully aware that Black Zetsu will be able to sense them coming. By this time, Sakura is sure they've obliterated most if not all of his forces. 

"He can't afford to send every White Zetsu he has after us," she reasons, "he'll probably want to save some of them for Kaguya's return."

Sasuke can see the wisdom in it, and defers to her judgement. Truth be told, he agrees. If he had an army, it would be useless to throw the whole thing against two combatants when a larger war was brewing in the future. No, to be sure, Black Zetsu was probably waiting for them. 

When an enemy made it clear that they were coming to your front door, the best thing to do was to prepare for them and give them the fight they were asking for. 

Uchiha territory is in the deep southwest of Fire Country, where the land is its hottest. Sasuke had been there only a small handful of times as a child; the journey was long from Konoha. 

The Uchiha of the past had made their land at the base of a dormant volcano, where the land was rich and dark. The Senju were more to the north, where the trees grew tallest into the sky. They met in the middle to do their fighting, having encampments much farther away from where their own smaller villages were set up. 

Somewhere in between the two was where Konoha would be built. 

Sasuke doesn't know the land as it is now, but he has a rough idea from his memories. He's approximately aware of where the shrine to Amaterasu will be, so that is where he leads Sakura. 

She was a benevolent goddess, one whose patrons kept the flames of the little temple lit. Though the sun descended in the sky, it did not stop burning, and neither did the temple lamps. The Hyūga, their cousins in the mountains who worshipped Tsukuyomi preferred to worship in the night, with a different dance for each phase of the moon. While they danced, the Uchiha tended the flames. 

It is the first place he is sure that Black Zetsu will be hiding. The Uchiha placed a great deal of stock in their religion, and their religious leaders were deeply important to their society. The Senju not respecting that had been one of the many things that had led to the fractured relationship between the two clans. The Senju had no gods, only ancestor worship.

The Uchiha assimilated, and lost Amaterasu. The faith was true with his mother through his grandmother, but Sasuke's father did not subscribe to the old ways. It wouldn't surprise Sasuke if Black Zetsu's tampering with the Sage's stone tablet also had something to do with that along the way. 

And that fiddling with the tablet, and Madara's eventual discovery of it, was another part of the reason Sasuke had led them thus far. 

They're on their bellies, still some meters away. The grass is high enough to cover them, but leaves sharp cuts along exposed areas of skin. Sasuke pulls up the cowl on his shirt; a black number he stole while he had wandered. Sakura pinches his cheek and calls him 'Kaka-sensei' for it. 

It had been - It had been startling to find her. He had been well aware that she was somewhere in this time period, and he had expected that one way or another he would find her. They both had the same goal, regardless of Kurama, and that was to stop Kaguya from ever making a return to this world. 

But seeing her among the Uzumaki, laughing with them, joking with them in battle. It hadn't hurt him per se. He had never begrudged Sakura her friendships, her alliances. But seeing her smile. Sasuke hadn't seen that look on Sakura's face since they thought the war was over in their time, when she belted across the battlefield to find Ino and kiss her because they  _thought_ they had lived through the worst of it. 

He hadn't wanted to take it away from her. But there hadn't been time. 

Sasuke had been so goddamned relieved to see her. She was a piece of his past, and the only physical thing in this world reminding him of where he came from and why he was here. Even when he had shut down his awareness and exercised the small sensor ability he had, when he had felt her, had felt Kurama in this world, it had been a shocking balm. 

Familiarity. Comfort each time she socked him on the arm. Home whenever she looked at him like she was annoyed or bored by him. And when they bent their heads close together to talk strategy, to listen to her fuss over him about eating more in his condition, all he had to do was close his eyes, and Naruto was there on his right, Kakashi in front of them. 

She was a small, and completely invaluable piece of him.

With her pale, hard hands in front of them, and in a strange amalgamation of standard Konoha field sign and what must be the Uzushio equivalent, she signs,  _'Kurama can feel him. He's here.'_

Sasuke purses his lips, hoping there is no one tending the shrine at this hour. He knows that this is not possible. There was always a priest or a priestess or an acolyte around to tend to Amaterasu's daylight fires, to replace the oil, or clean the floors, or to make offerings. Only an Uchiha katon was used to light the lamps inside, and though they were not likely to burn out quickly, they did burn out. 

The idea of killing his clansmen sits poorly with him. It always did, even when he had decided it was his duty to his clan to kill Itachi. The Uchiha prided the clan, prided  _family_ above all else. The idea that today he may have to cut down his ancestors to get to Black Zetsu makes him unhappy. 

Still, he knows that he will do what he must. One or two lives a small cost to protect all of the future. 

Sasuke knows his bloodline, though he does not know the faces of his ancestors. His mother's mother was Uchiha Kanae, and her mother was Uchiha Emi, whose mother Uchiha Nadeshiko was the last born daughter of Uchiha Tajima. She had been relegated to the life of a shrine maiden, away from combat until both of her older brothers had died childless. 

By this time, she was likely still a young woman. She was married by the time Izuna died, and had at least one child by the time Madara had; Kanae was the oldest child that had survived infancy, but she was the third born. And by virtue of her number of children, her age, and her birth, she had been the woman to lead the Uchiha after Madara's final defection. 

If he and Sakura were successful, it was possible that Madara would live to have children, and Izuna would as well. It made Sasuke wonder if he would ever be born at all, if Nadeshiko would ever give birth to Emi. Either that, or he would have plenty of cousins if he was born again in this timeline. 

So he spares a breath of worry for committing fratricide, but that is all he has to give. He is sure Sakura will not want to harm his clansmen, and he knows that if he runs into any of them, he will trap them in an illusion. 

 _'Forward_ ,' Sakura signs, the splay of her fingers deviant from the sign he knows. He recognizes it of course, which means it must be an archaic form of Konoha's field sign. He's surprised she's had enough time to pick so much up. Then again, it has been months, hasn't it?

They creep forward.

The shrine is large, about twice the size of the Naka shrine. Sasuke remembers this, too, remembers the once a year pilgrimage, and how pristine the shrine on the old Uchiha land looked compared to the wild landscape around it. The Uchiha still owned the land surrounding the shrine, and they maintained it well. But there was always something a little ferocious about it to Sasuke. 

Getting inside was the hardest part. The Uchiha rarely expected intruders to get so close to one of their most sacred spaces, especially considering the shrine was the heart of their territory. 

It was past noon, meaning the sun had escaped its highest peak, meaning the heaviest rotation of priests, priestesses, and acolytes had ended. 

 _'I'll take point,'_ he signs to her.  _'Cover me.'_

He waits to see her nod from the corner of his eye. He can see her green eye blink, and her Sharingan hidden again this deep in Uchiha territory. Sasuke at least had the coloring to excuse his, and he could shut it off. Sakura didn't have that luxury. It was a small miracle it hadn't been noticed yet. 

She had always been cleverer than most gave her credit for. Playing on how quickly her opponents underestimated her had been her strongest suit. He's well aware that he fell for it when they were genin, when he was a missing nin, too. If she had been just a little more focused when she was hunting him down, she might have gotten him. 

"I was too obsessed with trying to prove I was straight," she grumbled one night during the long war, grumbling with Ino's arms around her throat. 

Naruto had leaned into Sasuke's side. It was back when Naruto still had both his hands, because Sasuke remembers Naruto playing with his fingers, lightly brushing his fingers over Sasuke's callouses. 

"You're lucky, Naruto," Sakura said, a light smirk on her face. "You  _never_ had that problem."

Naruto had spluttered at the half insult, half endearing dig at his character and Sasuke had chanced a chuckle at the joke. Ino had pressed her lips to Sakura's temple. 

A heartbeat's worth of relief in the might around a small fire. Then, they were running again.

The shrine is resplendent, all curved dark wood and fresh red paint. It looks almost exactly as it had when Sasuke was a child. His mother and her sisters were the progeny of shrine keepers. When Mikoto had married to lead the clan, Akane and Kirin had tended the shrine. 

Itachi had wanted to be a priest before his father squeezed that dream out of him. Their world would have been much different if he had been allowed to pursue that path of spiritual nourishment instead of being walked onto a battlefield before all his baby teeth had fallen out. 

Perhaps Sasuke would have been the one to kill their clan. Perhaps it would have been a cousin, or even an outsider. 

"I believe you are looking for me."

The voice comes from behind them, from behind Sakura, and Sasuke immediately turns his head, Rinnegan swirling. He replaces himself with Sakura, unsure of what game the awful creature is playing at, but not willing to risk Sakura's life for it. 

Black Zetsu is in a dark purple kimono, a strange straw cowl covering his features. Sasuke narrows his eyes; that alone should have been enough to convince any Uchiha of this era not to trust him. Any creature that did not let the sign on its skin was one to be avoided. That was what Kirin-baa-chan had said, Akane-baa-chan nodding just over her shoulder. 

Sasuke is on his feet when he feels a twin pair of fangs sink into the flesh of his ankle. He doesn't flinch, only a squint of his eyes enough to convey the discomfort. 

An adder, he can tell that much easily. He can see the creature slither, writhing around his ankle. Then a second, and a third, dumping poison into him past their natural capacity, and on until they begin to weaken. 

Training with Orochimaru, contracting with the snakes had been enough to build Sasuke's immunity to snake venom of all kinds. That had been part of the stakes of his contract. While the Hakuja Sennin pumped its venom into shinobi to gauge their worthiness of snake senjutsu, Manda and his many siblings gave you some of their poison the first time you summoned them. It strengthened the contract itself; it imbued the snakes with Sasuke's blood, and Sasuke with their poison. 

He hadn't appreciated the bond with the snakes at the time. His sacrifice of Manda in his fight with Deidara had been proof enough of that. But as the war raged on, when Aoda died - It had been another to drop in his arsenal of sins.

He draws his Murakumo though he is aware Black Zetsu can survive any cut borne onto its flesh. He's already got a plan in mind, he just needs a reasonable amount of time to make it happen.

He knows a large fight will draw the tenders of the shrine out, so they need to get further towards the treeline. Sakura must know what he's thinking, because as soon as he hears her stand, she's darting past in the same instant. 

Black Zetsu avoids the brunt of her blow, which would have been enough to rend the bones of a normal man into jelly. Because Black Zetsu is not a normal man, it shoves him back.

Sakura doesn't let up. She releases a volley of kicks and punches that Black Zetsu does not seem accustomed to dodging. How long has it been since he has had to fight, since he could manipulate himself out of any situation that would cause him any undue harm? Perhaps it wasn't a matter of how long it had been, but more a question of how long it would be  _until._

Sakura moves forward, and Sasuke narrows his eyes. It isn't that Black Zetsu is poorly avoiding the attacks, it looks more like he's letting them connect. 

Sasuke curses the moment before Black Zetsu contorts Sakura's chakra filled blows and turns that energy back on her. She's vaulted back, but by now she's activated her Byakugō, and instead of killing her, it only makes her mad. 

She flips mid air and lands on her feet, catlike as she touches a hand to the ground to steady herself. Sasuke rushes forward then, Rinnegan bright and purple in the afternoon light. He shushins close enough to get into Black Zetsu's face, so that he can see his purple eye and the red swirling one opposite. 

An awful white grin curls over the black creature's mouth. 

It wouldn't be long now. 

He strikes out with his sword, and Black Zetsu twists and avoids being caught by it. Now, he allows himself to be pushed back towards the trees. He's seen something that he wants, and it's clear that he is devising a trap. 

There's a soft press against his mind, unlike Ino's techniques. Those had been a forceful break in no matter how elegantly wrapped in fine tuned technique they had been. This is something different. Older. More primal, and much more frightening.

This is Black Zetsu, teasing against his mind, convincing him to come forward. 

Sasuke follows, and Sakura fans out to cover his left eye should he need to shut it due to overexertion. She looks determined, oddly sharp with her hair cut so close her her face. It's longer than it was when Ino cut and maintained it, but it's short enough to keep out of her eyes. 

It'll have to be enough. He can see that she's kept her Sharingan covered. Underestimation was her strongest suit, and the Sharingan was the last unrevealed card she had in her deck. 

Katon would alert the Uchiha, so Sasuke sticks with water and wind, opposites to the transformations that the Uchiha favor and are favored by in return. 

The curl of Black Zetsu's suggestion tries to warp at his mind, but Sasuke slams his hand to the earth, and spears of solid rock shoot forward. Black Zetsu dodges them, but Sakura weaves through the spears with Tsurugi. She's half the swordsman Sasuke is, which means she's already better than most, and she follows up her slashes with her wide sweeping kicks. 

Black Zetsu banks a hard left, and Sasuke can see the moment Sakura curses when her foot makes contact with a tree. She has to turn awkwardly at the last moment to avoid utterly obliterating it, and Sasuke takes the distraction as the opportunity it is. 

He spits needles of water towards Black Zetsu, hands forming the seals for a basic raiton augmentation to make the water needles slice a little sharper. Black Zetsu seems utterly amused, and the wicked piece of him gently pressing its way inside of Sasuke's mind tells him what a wonderful vessel he'd make for the most powerful goddess in the pantheon, empress over the other gods, over foolish Amaterasu and her idiot brother Tsukuyomi.

Sakura darts around Black Zetsu, and hefts up the spears of rock Sasuke had created with his doton. She lifts one up on her shoulder and throws it. Sasuke doesn't spare a moment to marvel at the fact that the girl he's known all his life is terrifying. Instead, he smiles, and when Black Zetsu moves away from Sakura, Sasuke darts forward. 

Raiton chakra glitters within him, a friend waiting to be called upon. Sasuke turns Murakumo in his hand. Murakumo; Gathering Clouds. Sasuke doesn't shut his eyes to focus, doesn't form a hand sign. Instead, he lets that glittering, that sharp, airy chakra inside of him sift out of his hands and into his sword of gathering clouds. 

The closer they got to Uchiha territory and the further away they got from where the war was raging, the slower Sasuke's tenketsu leaked their chakra. He isn't sure of precisely how open they are now; he had asked Sakura to stop updating him once it reached sixty-seven percent.

He was aware that knowing would protect him from overexerting himself, but Sasuke is keenly in tune with his body. Being in the healing baths in Sound had ensured that much, and so had his private training with Manda and his siblings. 

He's at forty-three from his own estimation, and thirty is his baseline. Though the dilation means he's in a weakened state, it also means the raiton chakra stutters quick and eager out of him, keen to be used and wilder than it usually is. 

He directs the chakra into Murakumo's blade, and the Chidori Nagashi crackles to life. Sakura sees him, and she drops a spear of earth to perform the seals of a suiton. She creates a slim wall of water all around Black Zetsu. Before he can move, Sasuke is rushing forward, Murakumo high at his shoulder. 

The wakizashi pierces Sakura's wall of water, and the water amplifies the power of Sasuke's already formidable raiton. His chakra is excited by the prospect of fresh blood, and it courses through his sword, through Sakura's water to get to Black Zetsu. 

Sasuke strikes true. He impales Black Zetsu in the chest. 

Black Zetsu smiles, and the voice in Sasuke's mind is a thousand times louder. 

There are no words, not particularly. There are mostly feelings, and intense ones at that. It is almost like those times when he invaded Naruto's mind, his seal space, to speak to Kurama. And though Kurama could speak, his own malevolence, his frustration, and his ire were all near physical forces that would double over a weaker shinobi. 

Black Zetsu is all cocksure and desperation for power, for a reckoning, for a return. His mind is only a soundboard for Kaguya's thoughts, for Kaguya's evil. A duller version to be sure, but Black Zetsu is the will of the goddess, and her will is strong. 

Sasuke is banking on his own being stronger. 

He hears Sakura scream when it happens, when Black Zetsu travels up the blade, warping outside of the prison of water and lightning to crawl up Sasuke's sword, and up his arm to attach himself to Sasuke's flesh. Kaguya's black will invades Sasuke's mind and body, and Sasuke twitches, throwing Murakumo to the side as he lets it happen. 

"How wonderful," Black Zetsu says, moving Sasuke's mouth so that they are made to speak as one. "I was worried you and that awful bitch of yours would be more trouble."

Black Zetsu lifts Sasuke's arm, watching as his inky black self pours down the entire right side of Sasuke's body, taking control. 

"But instead you brought me this vessel," he purrs. "With a _Rinnegan_ eye, no less."

Sakura keeps her distance, panting hard with the effort of not running forward and killing Sasuke on the spot. He knows that she could if she wanted to, but Sakura has always hesitated when it came to those she loved. It was why she had never harmed him while she hunted him, why she had nearly broken his face in when he burned Ino. 

"The time you come from must be very,  _very_ nice for you to come all the way back here to stop me," Black Zetsu muses.

He wraps Sasuke's right fingers into a fist, and Sasuke can feel him try to control Sasuke's chakra to form a Chidori. 

"Let's make sure it happens," Black Zetsu says, grinning. 

Sasuke blinks open his Mangenkyō Sharingan. He makes no seals, he mouths no words. 

Amaterasu's holy black flames begin to devour him. 

Black Zetsu tries to retreat from his mind, but Sasuke digs in his heels and  _refuses_. Kaguya's will is strong, born of a raw hunger for power, but Sasuke's will must be stronger. 

For the future. For Taka. For Kakashi, and for Sakura. For the Uchiha. For his mother. For Itachi, and for Naruto. 

Sasuke burns, and Black Zetsu burns with him. 

He grinds her name out, each syllable a hard won battle. Sa-ku- _ra_. There are tears rolling down her face, but she does not sob. She shakes her head, mouths 'No', lets out a whine as pitiful as a child's, low and weak like a wounded animal's. 

He says her name again. Sa-ku- _ra._

With trembling hands, she unveils Obito's Sharingan. And Sasuke knows it isn't fair, knows that she will remember this for as long as she lives, as long as Obito's eye is rotting in her skull. Sasuke sees every last person he has burned, and now he is forcing Sakura to witness him. 

But it is the only way to ensure that Black Zetsu cannot return. Every part of him must go, so every part of Sasuke must go as well. 

She is trying to bargain with him, even with Obito's eye spinning into its strongest form. She begs, she needles, she threatens him. And she cries, her fists balled up at her sides, the bandages she uses to cover Obito's eye dangling from her fist. She pleads. She pleads again. 

_"Sakura!"_

She burns him. 

Sasuke is the last born son of a devoted follower of the sun goddess. Though Amaterasu's black flames swallow him, destroy him, he feels no pain. Instead, there is a dull heat, the kind that comes when you are wrapped in the arms of someone who loves you. 

Black Zetsu shrieks in his mind, agony doubling the creature over as it dies along with Sasuke. It is a battle between the will of one goddess, and the weapon of another. 

 _'Whose goddess is foolish?'_ Sasuke asks, shutting his eyes. _'Where is your mother now?'_

He does not feel himself fall to his knees, and slump to the side.  

' _Where is your empress? Your queen who could eclipse the Sun Herself?'_

Black Zetsu curses Sasuke, curses the Uchiha, curses Indra, Hagoromo, but never Kaguya. Sasuke smiles, the grass oddly soft beneath his cheek, though he knows it must have been burnt to nothing by now. 

He is so warm, and the arms around him feel like his mother's. He can almost smell her rose perfume. 

 _'Your queen is dead,'_ Sasuke thinks. 

And when the black flames take the rest of them both, and a dull white light comes to lick at his fingertips, Sasuke sighs. 

_'Naruto. Nii-san. I'm coming.'_

* * *

She buries what is left. That is what they did for their comrades in the war, though there was little left to bury. Amaterasu's black flames were all devouring. But there is something left. More than she expected.

It's probably because she stopped when she knew his vitals had stopped, when she knew that Black Zetsu was a blight that had been erased from the world. Then, she had started to heal. But what was left of Sasuke was beyond repair. Beyond her ken as a healer. Beyond the Shodaime's, or Tsunade's or even the Nakemuji Sennin itself.

She buries him. With slow hands dug into the thick earth, still wet from rain, she digs him a grave. She leaves his swords, Murakumo unsheathed at his head, and Tsurugi covered at his feet. They mark his grave.

She says a prayer to the gods she can't make herself believe in, but something deep inside of her says that Nobi is benevolent, that though she devours all as Amaterasu does, she is still the hearth fire, still the warmth of home. Nobi is a mother, with many small fires flickering behind her skirts like children. She prays to this foreign goddess whose name she bears. She prays he will find peace. Will find warmth. Will find Naruto, Itachi, and all those who love him in the Pure Land. She prays. 

Then, Sakura stands. And hollowed out, she begins to walk.


	14. Chapter 14

Madara watches his little brother fall in battle, and the entire world stops.

The Sharingan gives its user a perfect memory, and he has never resented anything more. His battles with Hashirama always threaten to become friendly spars. He has no desire to kill his first and greatest friend, not when he knows Hashirama still dreams for peace, when he knows that this man, the leader of the Senju, had a bowl cut as a child. He cannot pray to Amaterasu to help guide his katon in battle when he knows Hashirama is a good man trying to do what he feels he must for his people. 

Tobirama is different. Has always been different. Hashirama was kind, but he could be immovable, obstinate and severe when he had to be. Tobirama's kindness was like Hashirama's cruelty; rarely seen, and only shown when absolutely necessary. 

Madara would sympathize if it didn't mean the people he loves were dying by his hand. 

There is a reason Madara fights Hashirama almost exclusively, and it is the same reason Izuna engages with Tobirama. It has little to do with whatever outdated battle etiquette their fathers followed; firstborn fighting firstborn, secondborn fighting secondborn, and so on. No. it is because the four of them are the best their clans have to offer. 

Hashirama will not kill Madara's people, and Tobirama follows his brother's lead because he would follow Hashirama to the ends of the earth if he was asked. Madara does not kill Hashirama's people, and Izuna follows suit. It is this understanding that has driven the war into one of attrition. While the amassed Senju and Uchiha fought and died, the clan heads played at battles that would not be won in this lifetime for the sake of keeping more shinobi in their encampments many miles away from the fighting. 

Because if the four of them caused enough devastation, their elders would be loathe to send anyone else out to the front lines to stop their opposition. Madara is aware that his grandmother and his great uncle have no desire to lose more Uchiha to Senju Hashirama's hand. They are content to let him fight the Senju clan head, since he seems to be the only person that can keep the man at bay. 

On any other day, the same desire to protect the clan and limit bloodshed would extend to Izuna. Only he was to fight Tobirama to protect another cousin from having to do it, and from losing his life. 

But today, Izuna falls. 

Madara sees it from the corner of his eye. He has had to hold back laughter in this fight with Hashirama. The man seems distracted, his footwork slightly less than impeccable, which in this war is tantamount to sloppiness. His mind was clearly elsewhere, but Madara had little cause to worry much over it. As long as he wasn't using that damned fuinjutsu that his clan suddenly became so fond of, this was a fight he could easily win. 

The introduction of the Uzushioi to the Senju forces had been a shock the Uchiha under Tajima would not have recovered well from. The best fighters of the Uchiha all held the Sharingan. As it was, there were only thirty people who could wield the doujutsu in the clan, and five of them were too injured to currently fight. Those with the Sharingan were the first line of defense, perfectly mimicking jutsu to then teach to the clan so that counter attacks could be developed in the field and at home. 

But there was nothing to copy in fuinjutsu. Its strength was in its ability to appear benign until it was detonated and there was a field of fire in your face, or lightning being called down from below. 

Not to mention the shinobi among the Uzushio who used their hands to form signs that did not foster ninjutsu. Many of his clansmen had tried to mimic such techniques to no avail, which led Madaara to think it was a kind of field sign, still indecipherable unless they got their hands on one of the damn Uzushio shinobi.

This new alliance of Hashirama's had turned the war back into the favor of the Senju. They were shoving the Uchiha back toward their territory, making them cede land that hadn't been lost since Madara was a boy. 

It would have been enough to frustrate him if he had not wanted the war to end. As it is, he gets earfuls from the crows he receives from Sonomi-obaa-sama, demanding he not disrespect his father's memory by losing to the man whose father killed him. 

Madara wasn't exactly a fan of Tajima's parenting; losing his father had not been so great a blow as losing his mother as a child. Watching Izuna die is nothing next to seeing what is a flash of white light, and then his brother falling on Tobirama's sword. 

He moves, parrying one of Hashirama's blows before throwing his weight behind his own blade to force Hashirama's away. Then, Madara runs. 

Tobirama is several feet away by the time Madara gets there, which is so infuriating he could spit. How on earth did Tobirama get so fast? What kind of technique was that? The shushin didn't move that quickly, didn't give off a vague white light. It had to have been something else. Something that had to do with his months long absence from the battlefield and his return with Uzushio shinobi in tow. 

"Izuna," he says, standing in front of his fallen brother, his sword at his eye line should he need to fend off the younger Senju brother. "Izuna, can you stand?"

He hears nothing from his brother, and he brings up his left hand to form the seals for a katon that will create a larger perimeter around them. He'l need space to shushin Izuna back to their camp where there are medics waiting. 

"Izuna," he repeats, and he spares a backward glance at his brother before he spits fire at the Senju brothers. 

He isn't getting up. 

Izuna is a springy little shit, always has been. He had the kind of energy that made him great to train with, great to mess with, to tease, but ultimately pissed off their father. He was too enthusiastic. Too willing to smile. To jostle Madara. Too willing to speak with Nadeshiko, even if she was Tajima's shame. 

Izuna could bounce back from being hit by anything. Even their father. He would leap back up, bloody mouthed and laughing, ready to jump back into the fray. Izuna's ability to laugh in the middle of a fight because he was  _losing_ was something that moored Madara in this war more than anything else had after their mother died. After their father died. 

But he isn't laughing now. Madara doesn't need more information than that.

"Medic!" he shouts, the plea scratching his throat as he calls out. "I need a medic!"

Madara drops the katon in favor of a summoning. He doesn't drop his sword, so the seals are fumbled, awkward, more reckless intention than anything else. He uses dried blood from a cut on his cheek. 

A crow unfurls from the blood on his finger, and its talons clench hard on the armor of his forearm. Her name is Toriko, and she's one of the younger of Madara's summons. She's his best flier, and she tilts her head down, concern obvious in her black eyes as she stares at Izuna. 

"I need a medic," he tells her. "Anyone, as fast as you can. It's a stab wound to the stomach. It's deeper -,"

Deeper than any wound Izuna's ever had before. Madara would know. He's seen every last one of Izuna's cuts and scrapes since they were kids. He was the person Izuna told whenever a new scrape or bruise or scar showed up. 

But this isn't like when his little brother broke his wrist in a bad landing, and held tight to the busted bone, trying to force a wobbly smile through his tears. Izuna is hurt too badly to give him a grin, or to tell him that he's alright. 

Madara never thought he'd see the day when his little brother  _not_ talking his ear off would feel like being burned from the inside out. 

Toriko looks back at him, cawing sharply to catch his attention. She nods at him, then lifts off of his forearm and takes to the sky. She'd be able to outfly any arrows that tried to waylay her. 

He stares down at his brother and seriously debates whether or not he could safely deactivate his Sharingan. Doing so was dangerous with so many enemy shinobi around, but he doesn't want to have a perfect memory of his brother if he - if - 

"Izuna," he says, dipping a hand below his brother's head to support his neck. "Open your eyes, you awful brat. This isn't funny, you hear me?"

His brother blinks an eye open and bares his teeth in an approximation of a smile. Even that seems to take something out of him. Tobirama's blow must have been something terrible to put him on his back so quickly. 

"You're calling me a brat when I've been mortally wounded?" Izuna asks. "Ani-ja, what kind of big brother are you?"

Madara narrows his eyes and fights down the panic that is threatening to claw its way out of his mouth. He spares a glance upwards to see if Toriko is circling; she isn't. 

"What kind of little brother lets a hit like that take him down?"

Izuna scoffs. The sound is wet, and terrible. Blood is staining his clothes, but there are so many dents in his armor that Madara isn't perfectly sure where the wound that's killing him is. It must be somewhere close to his lungs if he sounds like this. 

"I got stabbed, brother," Izuna says, eyes narrowed. "We're at  _war_ in case you hadn't noticed."

Madara huffs, trying to find a happy medium between looking down at his brother, up at the Senju, and searching for Toriko overhead. 

If Izuna is well enough to crack wise, to try and force that awful smile he had just offered, then maybe there was a chance. The wound was deep, but possibly survivable. He knows that Uchiha medics have nothing on the Senju ones; Hashirama's regenerative ability seemed to only apply to himself, but there were familiar faces among the Senju. Ones that Madara knew his clansmen had defeated, but had returned to the battlefield afterward. Medicine was more advanced amongst the Senju, that much had to be true. 

Their Hyūga cousins were talented healers, but they lived far to the north. They would be willing to help for the sake of honoring their shared blood, but it would come at a heavy cost to the Uchiha. Saving the life of the secondborn son was the kind of favor that got paid back with interest. 

He's well aware that the longer Izuna bleeds in the field, the shorter his chance of survival becomes. Madara does not want to admit that he's terrified. Their medics are subpar. The nearest healer he trusts is fighting on the other side of the war, and after that, there's the acolytes of Amaterasu's shrine. They knew no medical ninjutsu, but they were good with soothing pain and encouraging broken parts to mend in favor of being able to mend them on their own. 

Toriko caws overhead; the medic is too far away. Madara grits his teeth, and he goes to lift his brother. 

"C'mon," he mutters, "we just have to get to her. They'll met us halfway."

Izuna is nearly limp in his arms as he tries to get his brother to his feet. He's bleeding freely, dripping off his clothes and onto the cold, stone ground beneath them. His knees buckle, and Madara tries to steady him.

"Hang in there," Madara says, heart thundering in his throat. "I'll get you out of this, you hear me?"

If he shushins fast enough, he can side-along Izuna to Toriko's exact location. He doesn't know how well the technique will work considering his younger brother's wound. Madara looks up to the sky and debates calling up a katon to shut the wound himself. He doesn't want to cause more damage than he can undo. 

But what other choice does he have? He cannot let his brother die on the battlefield. 

"Madara - ,"

Hashirama is standing directly in his path, looking - looking absurdly sad for someone whose little brother is alive and whole by his side. Madara narrows his eyes and resents Tobirama. Not only for harming Izuna so thoroughly, but for having the gall to stand beside Hashirama, as if the two Uchiha in front of him are only half a threat. 

Hashirama throws his sword, and it clatters uselessly to the ground beside him. Tobirama tenses, but does not disarm himself. That's something that Madara can at least be grateful for. It's better to hate Tobirama for being cautious than to loathe him for thinking they're easy prey. 

"Madara," Hashirama repeats. And he's imploring now, using that voice of his, the one that rallies his people. The one he used when they were children. It was higher then, softer. Less commanding. The voice of a boy who had a vision. It makes something treacherous in Madara feel hopeful. 

This is his father's war. And his father's father's. He did not ask for it. Neither did Izuna. Neither did his dead clansmen, all of them strewn across this battlefield and countless others. The Uchiha cremated their dead on the battlefield, and returned their ashes home to Amaterasu's shrine. Madara does not want to set his brother's body on fire. 

"The dream we shared," Hashirama says, holding out his hand. "The one that made us friends in spite of everything. I still believe in it. Do you?"

Madara's little brother is dying in his arms, and if he gives up now, Hashirama will probably call one of the Senju to heal him. It will mean the Uchiha ended the war, which will mean glory and rage in equal measure from his clan and from history. It also means that Izuna will live. 

"Ani-ja."

Izuna raises his head, and his eyes are unfocused. They are black as a sky without stars, and they stare at nothing. Madara stares down at him, wants to shut him up so they can get away. Toriko is still screeching overhead. If they don't start moving now, there may not be enough time. 

"If you can forget that these people," Izuna says, grinding each word out through his pain, "if you can forget that they've killed our cousins, our clansmen, our  _father -_  If you can _trust them -_ ,"

"Enough."

The voice comes from behind the Senju brothers. Tobirama turns first because he is still armed; Madara takes a half step back, preparing the seals for a shushin with the hand around his brother's middle. He is still on one knee, Izuna's legs loose and awkward on the ground, too weak to stand.

"Tsubaki."

Tobirama says the name as if its the name of a ghost. The woman, Tsubaki, completely ignores him. She walks past him, her one green eye only on Madara and his dying little brother. 

"He's going to die," she says. "Put him back down on the ground."

Tobirama reaches out to grab her wrist, but the woman snaps her hand out of his grip with astonishing force. She marches forward. She looks exhausted, like she has been walking, fighting for days. Her pink hair is a right mess, and the bandage over her eye is stained with blood. 

She approaches Madara like he isn't capable of killing her on the spot. She doesn't seem to have a fearful bone in her body. She gets down to her knees in front of him and reaches out to touch Izuna. Her hands are coated in a veil of pale green chakra.

Madara lashes out, catches her wrist in one hand and snaps it in the same fluid motion. Tsubaki's eyes crinkle at her temples, but she otherwise shows no sign of a woman who just had her bones broken. Instead, her green eye looks Madara in his bright red ones, and the jut of her chin as she stares at him is as confusing as anything else. 

She looks at him the way Hashirama does, as if she isn't afraid that he will cast her under so many illusions, she will never find her way out of them. She looks at him the way Tobirama does, as if she is daring him to try.

"Put him back down on the ground," she says. 

"Hashirama," Madara snaps, arms too full of his brother to do anything further, "Call off your kunoichi before I -,"

"He is going to choke on his own blood," Tsubaki says.

The words fall out of her mouth like they are nothing. Like this is a fact of life. 

"If you want his life on your hands, then take it," she hisses. 

She holds her broken wrist in the hand coated with green chakra. Before Madara's eyes, the awkward lumpy flesh rights itself. It is a miracle. He has never seen anyone other than Hashirama heal this way. He watches her hands, but she had used no hand signs. What was it then, a kekkei genkai? Another regeneration ability?

The woman, Tsubaki reaches forward, and covers his cheek with her hand. The movement is so shocking, he only half ducks out of it before her chakra can reach him. 

He knows from the way Hashirama's eyes widen across the small clearing that the wound is shut. Gone. Healed. He knows by the sudden lack of pain in his chin from the hit he took there during today's fighting, from the way the insistent ache on his temple from a hit that gave him a concussion a few weeks ago dies out into quietness. 

He looks back at her, and slowly, finally, he follows her command. 

It is clear enough that she isn't under Hashirama's command, though Tobirama knows her name. A mercenary? Or an Uzushio shinobi that wouldn't come to heel? It doesn't matter to Madara. If she was willing to get this close, to risk her life to save Izuna's, then who was he to look a gift horse in the mouth?

And if she was lying, if his brother died under her hand, then the Senju were traitors and cowards. The world would remember them for that much, and nothing else. Madara would be sure.

Tsubaki is silent. She peels off Izuna's armor, deftly tears away his shirt so she can get to the wounds beneath. She places both hands on his chest, and Madara watches as they shut themselves. Watches the tissue knit back together. Watches her drain the blood from Izuna's lungs. 

He watches her save his brother's life. 

"He needs rest," she croaks, sounding just as exhausted as Madara feels. "He needs rest, but he'll live."

His eyes flicker between her and his brother, whose own eyes are half open and staring up at Madara. 

"What -," Madara has to swallow, has to breathe around the fact that his brother is _alive_ and this rogue woman is to thank for it. "What is your name? Who are you?"

Was it better to be indebted to the Hyūga or to a mercenary? At least with a mercenary, there was only one woman to pay off. She looks like she could use a war horse and at least a month's worth of supplies. The elders would probably offer her a husband or a wife for what she did here today. Madara can't begrudge them. He'd give her the shirt off his back right now if she demanded it of him. 

"My name," the woman says, the green light around her hands slowly disappearing, "is Nobi Tsubaki."

She looks away from her patient, and back into Madara's eyes. 

"I am an Uzushio medic, and personal guard to Uzumaki Mito, wife of Senju Hashirama."

Not a mercenary. But allied to the Senju, and closely at that. And what did that mean for the war, that one member of the Senju clan had nearly killed Izuna while another had saved his life? Had healed Madara in the process, even after he had wounded her?

Tsubaki doesn't seem interested in the political upheaval that she's just caused. Instead, she rolls back onto her heels and stands. She turns around and starts walking. She says nothing to Tobirama and Hashirama as she passes them. No. She is silent as a ghost, slipping over the battlefield.

Tobirama and Hashirama share a look, but it isn't one that Madara is privy to. He only has eyes for Izuna, who places a sleepy hand cautiously on his own stomach, unsure if he believes what has just transpired either. 

Later, when they are back on Uchiha land, and the medics of their people will marvel at the perfection with which Izuna has been healed, his younger brother will look at him and say, "If you could trust them after what they've done to us, ani-ja... If you could trust them, then I could, too."

It will be the kind of blind faith in him that dragged Izuna into this war in the first place. But it's also the kind that made space for rogue women like Nobi Tsubaki to heal the enemy in front of her commanders. 

For now, Izuna is still thunderstruck, wondrous with the surprise that is his suddenly extended lifespan.The hand he had used to hover over his new scars finds a way to rest on top of Madara's. He smiles, soft and wondrous. He was probably in shock. Madara raises his head to look at the Senju brothers; Hashirama stares after Tsubaki, Tobirama's eyes are narrowed on Madara. 

"No fairy tales, Hashirama," Madara says. "Don't make promises you can't keep."

Hashirama's eyes widen a fraction, but he nods. He has always been Madara's best friend. He has always been good at reading him. 

"Of course, Madara," Hashirama says, stepping forward, and then a second time when Madara doesn't flinch back. "Of course."

Hope is a treacherous thing. It flutters high in his chest, strangling his apprehension. 

* * *

Word spreads through the Senju encampment about the strange pink haired woman walking the battlefield faster than Touka can notch and loose an arrow. But when she sees Tsubaki staggering towards the camp, every last red flag she can think of gets thrown on the field. 

No woman came back from a kidnapping unscathed. Tsubaki's hair is a mess, her face is caked with dirt, and her clothes are disheveled. She's a sight to behold, but that isn't what Touka worries over. 

Survival training is something drilled into every shinobi's mind. There was no telling when you could get separated from your people, or trapped, or kidnapped. She is not worried about how Tsubaki managed to escape from wherever she got off to. 

What worries Touka is what happened to Tsubaki while she was a hostage. 

"Oi!" she shouts, waving away the Senju that have arrived to stop Tsubaki's passage into the camp. "Make way! She's Uzushio!"

They defer to her because she's the highest ranking shinobi present; she is Tobirama's left hand, and she is the next person in the chain of command after him. Touka jogs ahead to meet Tsubaki, wishing she had something on her to throw across the other woman. A blanket, a coat of some kind,  _anything_. 

Women who came back from such ordeals often liked to be covered. Touka had taken care of many of them in her time, had seen them paper thin and one breath away from flying away. Had seen them raged against anyone who tried to touch them, to offer them a kind word. Had seen them die from their wounds. 

"Tsubaki," she says, voice soft as she meets the woman. "This way. I'll take you to my tent. You can have it for the night, I'll set up right next to you, is that okay?"

Tsubaki says nothing. She walks forward, accepting Touka's presence at her side as if she is a spirit or a ghost, whose closeness she must suffer through. 

When they get into camp, she can see that word has spread to the Uzushio shinobi. The island was small, and everyone on it had known of the stranger's arrival when Tsubaki had accidentally showed up on the beaches. They've all met her, all know her, and all of them watch her with concern in their eyes. 

Tsubaki walks as if she cannot see them. 

Touka wishes that Momo or Kikue or any of the Handmaidens were here. They knew Tsubaki better, they could comfort her at this time of need. Even Mito would be better than this. 

As it is, Touka makes do. That is what she's always had to do, and so she does it now. She gets Tsubaki into her tent, shows her where her clean clothes are. She watches the woman forgo changing out of her rumpled attire, refuse to change the bloody bandage over her bad eye. She curls up onto Touka's bedroll, pulling the thin blanket up over her shoulders. 

Touka leaves her like that, and stands sentinel outside of her tent until Tobirama and Hashirama come thundering back into camp. Hashirama has his war council to talk to; there are squads to be sent out to retrieve Senju corpses, but there are also peace talk parties that need to be selected, and arranged. 

Tobirama is the one that comes to her tent. He's a talented sensor. She figured he would use his ability rather than generate more gossip by asking about the pink haired anomaly. 

"No," she says, when he walks up to her. 

She is seated in front of her tent, quiver and bow still on her back. She is tired, but she will not leave this post. She will not leave Tsubaki's side, not unless she had to. 

Women had to stick together in times like these. Touka had learned that the hard way, being one of the only Senju kunoichi allowed in the field. They  _had_ to look out for each other. And Uzushio or not, Tsubaki was still a woman, and she needed someone to watch over her for a little while. 

"No men."

That's all she has to say. Tobirama stiffens. Not with discomfort or with shock. He knew what happened to women in war. It happened to men, too, and children in the worst possible scenarios. Tsubaki had been kidnapped by bandits. She had been gone for weeks. It was bound to happen; if they were strong enough to abduct her, they were strong enough to do what they pleased with her. 

"I'll get her back to Senju territory," Touka says. "Give me one other woman. An Uzushio one would be best. Once she's back on Senju land, we'll ride back."

Tobirama shuts his eyes, and Touka wonders if this is worse than what he expected to happen. Did he think that Tsubaki would be murdered? Tortured for Uzushio or Senju secrets? He had his many suspicions about her. Maybe he had hoped she would have died when she was stolen. At least that way he didn't have to turn his brother against one of Mito's treasured companions. 

She wants to spit at him. She knows how he thinks too well. Tobirama is not void of empathy or of compassion despite his callous exterior. He feels as deeply as Hashirama, Touka knows this. But wherever Hashirama wanted to yield, Tobirama wanted to soldier on. He was stubborn, and he was capable of cruelty because of it. 

"There's no need," he says, hands loose at his sides. "There's no need."

She narrows her eyes up at him, confused. He rarely repeats himself. Had he been hit on the head? Did he need to see a medic?

"The war is over," Tobirama says, looking up from the ground and meeting her gaze. "It's over."

* * *

Touka takes up shifts with other women, watching her tent to make sure that no one except Tsubaki goes in or out. She finds out in Hashirama's war council meeting that Tobirama wasn't speaking the naive dreams of a shinobi tired of fighting or of a child that was missing a dead parent. 

The war was over. Tobirama had nearly killed Uchiha Izuna, and Tsubaki had brought him back to life. Touka cannot tell which event made Madara want to call the fighting to an end. She is sure that if Tobirama died, Hashirama would have immediately called a ceasefire and would have waved a white flag. 

It could have been the threat of seeing his own younger brother dying, or an unexpected show of mercy that had changed Uchiha Madara's mind. Touka doesn't care much either way. What mattered was that the war was over, and that things - things were going to start changing for the better. 

There's no bringing the news to Tsubaki. 

When the woman is not sleeping deep as a shinobi gnawing on betel nut, she is plagued with nightmares that snatch her in and out of rest. When she is not fighting her own mind, she sobs. Quietly, so quietly that anyone else would forget that she was suffering. 

But Touka knows, and the other women of the camp know. Some of them have also survived what they expect Tsubaki has come back from. They are the ones that offer to bring her meals, offer to help her bathe, to comb her hair. 

Tsubaki turns all of them away, and she begins to rot in her pain. She does not seem to care that her intervention might have saved countless lives. She does not care that they are returning back to Senju territory in a few days time to regroup and prepare for diplomatic talks with the Uchiha. 

There doesn't seem to be space for anything inside of her other than her feeling. Touka cannot tell if it is grief or rage, but she knows that whatever it is, it is deep and uncompromising. 

She knows that if Tsubaki is not careful, she will lose herself to it. 

* * *

Mito is waiting at the gates when they return from the fighting. So are her Handmaidens. 

The returning war party is jovial, banging on drums and singing loud enough that Mito can hear them before she sees them. A child tells her that singing upon return means something good. Victory in battle. Mito pats the boy's head, and he beams up at her. He's missing his bottom front teeth. 

The campaign had lasted longer than she had originally expected. A month was a long time to be without one's husband, or at least that was what the older Senju women would say. They had looked at Mito more appreciatively after her display when Hashirama took his battalion out to war. Perhaps they had done similar things when they were younger, had run outside barefoot and nearly nude to wave goodbye to their husbands.

Perhaps they had guessed what she had done the night before. 

It had done her well to garner more respect from the clan. Prudish as they were, they were not so conservative when it came to sex that created heirs for the clan. She had been gifted with several Senju men and women wishing her good will, politely asking after her health after she had seen Hashirama off. 

If she was pregnant, it was too soon to say. And if she was not, then her husband was returning from war today, and she could try again. She figures that if it happens, she'll be aware. Storing chakra at the Byakugō between her collarbones made her so aware of her tenketsu system, that if a new system began growing inside of her, she'd probably know it as soon as it happened.

She is dressed much better today, still in the white and teal of Uzushio. She is wearing her crown, her hair pulled back in two buns. No seals hang from them today. Her guards are similarly dressed in the colors of their own clans, and Mito has gotten much better at holding her guard against the discomfort at not having Tsubaki stand between Momo and Kikue. 

The noise of joy gets closer, and Mito is pleasantly surprised to see the members of the Senju still at camp are clapping their hands and calling out to their soldiers. Parents are eager to welcome home their sons the same way wives are eager to welcome their husbands. She has never seen the severe clan seem to happy, so excited for a common cause. 

It's infectious. Mito chances a smile. 

The regiment comes home in a cacophony of sound. Hashirama rides in front, Tobirama to his right, and Touka on his left. He looks incredible, his armor polished, his hair pushed back. And though he wears the white band with the Senju palms, Mito can see where his hair falls over his temple, and her gold clip keeping it out of his eyes. 

He looks younger. Less tired than he was when he left. She can only hope that means good news. 

Part of her is tempted to do the girlish thing, to run forward and meet him. She holds back; it would be a display for these people that they did not deserve and would not understand. Hashirama was her friend, and Mito was happy he wasn't  _dead_. 

She waves instead, joins the throngs of Senju men, women, and children cheerfully greeting their soldiers come back home. On his horse, Tobirama looks well, though it stings her to notice. And Touka - 

Mito falters when she looks at Touka. 

Because on her war horse, just behind her and slumped forward, is a head of pink hair that Mito knows anywhere. Too pale to be a full blooded Nobi like Minako, and too short to be Uzushio by birth. 

She loses her composure. Mito runs forward. 

Rin snatches at her, but she does not stop. She feels Momo's hand grab at her to slow her down, but she can't. She is making a fool of herself. Is making all the wrong decisions. She stops in front of her husband, in front of Hashirama, but her eyes are on where Tsubaki has her face buried in Touka's shoulder. 

Hashirama stops his horse before the two of them can run Mito over. Her Handmaidens all flank her now, and the drumming becomes a bit more hesitant. Hashirama doesn't miss a beat. He throws his leg over his horse and dismounts, and in front of everyone, he takes Mito's face into his hands. 

"It's okay," he says against her mouth, feigning a kiss so that he can speak to her candidly. "See to your friend."

When he pulls away, Mito's entire face goes fuzzy with the intense desire to weep. To thank him. She doesn't cry. He is more than what she deserves, especially after what she has done to him.

Instead, she says, "Thank you," and she kisses him sincerely. 

It's a wise move. It emboldens a wife, and then a son, then a husband, then a daughter, then a cousin, and an auntie, and an uncle, until the whole of the Senju is flooding out of its front gates to meet the war party. 

People leap off their horses to meet their loved ones, and the drums return to roaring. Children are lifted up onto shoulders, other adults are swept into kisses. 

Mito lets Hashirama go, and in the din, she makes her way to Touka, who has already dismounted with Tsubaki. 

As soon as she gets a good look at her, Mito is abruptly aware that something has gone horribly, horribly wrong. Touka says nothing. Just shakes her head and holds her horse by the reins. 

Mito wants to reach out, but Tsubaki won't look  _at_ her. She won't look at anyone. She stares ahead and through. Her green eye is dogged by a dark circle, and her covered eye must have been wounded because the bandages that cover it are dark with dried blood. 

The other Handmaidens say nothing. Instead, they fan out, and form a circle around Tsubaki. The Nobi woman doesn't move. She just stands there, inside of the circle with Mito, not looking lost or defeated, but hollow. 

Tsubaki looks so much like Yashiro that something inside of Mito is threatening to shatter for it. 

"Let's get you inside," she says. Her voice is so soft it gets drowned out in the celebratory din around them. 

Tsubaki blinks. Mito holds out a hand. Tsubaki stares at it. Then, with little warning, she takes an awkward step forward, and all but collapses into Mito's side. The sudden weight of her startles Mito, but she recovers soon enough, and stands to support Tsubaki. Mito wrinkles her nose; Tsubaki smells like old sweat and blood and grief. She looks just as bad.

She holds Tsubaki up, the raucous cheering and singing around them providing a good cover. Touka follows, handing off her horse to a stableboy. Together, she and the Handmaidens form a tight circle around Mito and Tsubaki, protecting them from any jostling from the crowd. 

As they walk, Mito wraps her hand around Tsubaki's. She isn't expecting the strength of Tsubaki's grip when she holds back. 

They manage to make it all the way into the Senju main house, and then into Mito's private quarters. She sinks down onto her bed, and Tsubaki follows her, quiet as death itself. 

And though Mito has crossed an ocean and a continent, has watched her brother die in her arms, has given up her freedom so that her people may thrive, she has never felt as helpless as she does when she looks at the many women around her, all of them unable to help the one shaken and silent in Mito's arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i got super motivated by spite to finish and post this chapter early, so here it is! i apologize for posting it at 2:45 in the morning. there are probably spelling errors. please let me know what they are in the comments. i'm a spite fueled disaster and i need sleep asap yesterday.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tags have changed to include suicidal ideation for this chapter.

He keeps her asleep as often as he can.

Humans need food, but there are monks that can survive off of cycling nature energy through their bodies. The great beasts of the Sage regions and summoning creatures alike only ate food when they felt like it. They lived off of the pulse of the world. 

Sakura is only human. The Katsuyu of this time does not know her, but chakra can move where blood cannot. There is still an amount of chakra in Sakura that is tied to Shikkotsu, and the thrummings of the forest's chakra beating softly inside of Sakura's original Byakugō. 

She will lose weight while she sleeps, but Kurama thinks that is a small price to pay. He is an old creature, one beyond the confines of death. He is part of the world; he is its mischief, and its luck. Zenko and yako both. 

Kurama is old and angry, but he let go of his rage long ago. Perhaps not very long ago. Naruto's life was a blip in comparison to his entire existence. And Mito had figured out the secret to sharing space with him shortly into her tenure as the first jinchuuriki. She had passed it onto Kushina, who had no chance to tell Naruto, but Kushina had understood, and Naruto had figured it out intuitively. 

The Uzumaki loved big as the sun and stars. Though Kurama did not want to be forced into them, tamped down, squeezed, delegated, mistreated as he was, the three of them had loved that way. Naruto like his mother, and Kushina like her great-grandmother before her. They had loved, and it had changed him. 

Kurama knows mercy. Had known it before he was named a bijuu, when he was still just the Sage's child. So he has mercy, and he lets Sakura sleep. 

She is worse, much worse, when she is awake.

* * *

She sees it. Can't stop seeing it. Thinks she never will. She would have thought that Obito's eye would run out of space. Would have to dump something out to make room for the new memories that she has poured into it. 

It has plenty of room. 

But it is benevolent even when she does not want it to be. She does not see Obito's memories, the good or the bad. She does not feel the boulder crushing her side, the strange old man keeping her alive, the white creatures, the promise of a pure world; does not try to murder her teacher and his wife and their precious,  _precious_ son. 

She sees Sasuke. She smells him burn. She vomits in her sleep.

* * *

Looking at her makes Mito's stomach turn. 

She sleeps and does little else. It is difficult to wake her for long enough to convince her to eat. When she is awake, she seems delirious. She doesn't speak. She hardly makes sounds. But she flinches when she sees Rin's dark hair, or her purple eyes. She screams when cooked meat is brought to her. She claws at her wounded eye in her sleep. 

Only one time does Mito try to lift the patch Tsubaki incessantly keeps over it. There is blood seeping from underneath its bindings, and if there is a wound there, if it gets infected and Tsubaki must lose her eye, then she needs to know immediately. 

She lifts the patch with her fingernails and Tsubaki rears forward in her sleep, snatching Mito's wrist with enough force to break it. Her green eye is flashing through the haze of her delirium, and her lip is curled. 

Mito is still. Her other handmaidens are at the ready, each of them unhappy at the prospect of having to put Tsubaki down but more than willing to do it to protect Mito. 

It takes several breaths for Tsubaki to realize where she is, and when she does, she rips her hand off of Mito's wrist. Mito hands her the cloth she was going to use to clean the bloodied skin beneath her eyepatch, and Tsubaki does the work briskly, with her back to the women assembled in the room. 

She had managed to see the skin of Tsubaki's covered eye. Pale from lack of light, and otherwise unmarked. The blood that came from Tsubaki's eye was probably from a cut along her eyelid, or caused by some kind of breakage in her tear duct. Though how that much would have happened, Mito can only guess. 

She has finger shaped bruises on her wrist to show for her trouble. They make Hashirama worry. 

"I'm alright," she insists, sitting squarely on his lap. 

She goes to him in the early morning. Tsubaki is always sleeping, but Mito does not like to leave her in the night. The night was full of all kinds of terrors, and she did not fancy the idea of abandoning her newly recovered friend to receive them. 

Hashirama runs his fingers over the purpled skin, and furrows his brows in concentration. A smell like spring, like marigolds blooming erupts in the room and soft green chakra glows from his fingertips. The bruising fades. Not completely, but it goes from purple to yellow before Mito's eyes. 

She looks to Hashirama in surprised, not having known of this ability before now. 

"She's your friend," he says, "but she shouldn't hurt you like this. Even if she doesn't mean it."

"I know." 

Hashirama sighs, wraps his arms around her waist, places his ear gently against her sternum and listens to her heart beat. 

"I know you won't leave her side until she's well enough," Hashirama says. "But she'll be needed when the peace talks begin."

Needed. It makes Mito want to scoff. They wanted to parade Tsubaki around like a prized chicken; the woman that ended the war against orders. She doubted that either side wanted to celebrate her. She knew the Senju elders were probably livid that a shinobi of Uzushio had done so much, while being a  _kunoichi_ that had been kidnapped on top of it. 

"I'm also needed for the peace talks," Mito replies. "She'll stay with me. I'll keep her in line."

The phrase is strange coming out of her mouth. Keep Tsubaki in line? The woman wasn't exactly a tempest. At least, she hadn't been before. Now? With the nightmares and the screaming and the sleeping for hours on end - Now, Mito wasn't so sure. 

"Be careful."

He's looking up at her, his brown eyes at once grave and hopeful. It is easy, so easy to forget that his dream is on the line. The thing he's fought for since he was a boy is in his grasp. Tsubaki helped him get a little further down the line, but if she further injures Mito, if she snaps and hurts the wrong person, it'll all be for nothing. 

"I know she's your friend. I know you care about her very deeply," he continues. "But when they come back like that, you have to be careful with them."

Mito knows that Tsubaki would never hurt her on purpose, but the analyst, the strategist, the  _politician_ in the back of her mind tells her to be wary. She is not pregnant now, but it has been months since she first lay with Hashirama, and she needs to try again for her own sake. For the sake of the Senju, but for the sake of Uzushio, who still needed an heir. 

If Tsubaki hurt her by accident, whatever harm befell Mito would harm the infant inside of her. And if that happened, there would be nothing Mito could to do protect Tsubaki's life. 

"I know," she says. 

She puts her fingers on his chin and guides his mouth to hers. She ignores the smell of marigolds in the air, and the woman they remind her of.

* * *

Sometimes she wakes up to sunshine, and that is terrible because it was daylight when he died. Sometimes, she wakes up at night, and that is terrible because it was night when she lost all the others. When she wakes up at twilight, she is left breathless because the light was just like that, half there and half not, when she was sent here. Alone except not alone. 

And now she is alone again. 

She thinks about it. She could do it without them noticing. A subtle spike of chakra in and around the chambers of her heart would stop it. She could do what her wife did. Sever her own brain stem. End it cleanly, quietly, before any of them could notice. Before they could stop her. 

It would be easy. So easy. And then she wouldn't dream any more. Wouldn't have to wake up anymore to the light or the half light or the no light at all. 

This world, the one that she had saved or had tried to, it didn't need her any more. Black Zetsu was gone. The White Zetsu's had been all but decimated. The only thing left to destroy was the Gedo, but she did not have a Rinnegan and so she could not summon it. There was no Sage-jiji to give her his chakra, and she doubted that Madara or Hashirama would be willing to lend her some. 

They could handle it from there, couldn't they? She had done her best. Had handed peace to them on a platter with just a few words, and an action. She had worked so hard, hadn't she? Didn't she deserve a rest for what she had been through?

She had lived three lifetimes. The one before the war, the one during the war, and this life trying to stop the first two from ever happening. She feels as though she has aged a thousand and some odd years. She is tired. Deep, deep in her bones, Sakura is tired. 

She does not want to eat. She does not want to drink. She feels Kurama manipulate her, feels him scratch at her seal, at her blood contract with Katsuyu, and encourage her body to eat chakra to survive even though she  _does not want to_. 

She lives against her will. She thinks to kill herself out of spite. 

She wonders if she will go to the Pure Land, and if they will all be there when she arrives. Surely, the number of people she had killed was outweighed by the number of lives she had saved. Were there rules about her being able to enter if she ended her own life? Would she end up in limbo because of it? 

If so, Ino would be there, too. And that would be enough.

* * *

 "Everyone responds a different way to it happening to them."

Touka watches Mito watch Tsubaki, curled up small, sleeping in her bed. Still. After six days, Tsubaki cannot be moved. It's half Mito's orders, half Tsubaki's fragile state keeping anyone from wanting her to move to her own quarters. 

If she is alone, she may hurt herself. 

"I've never heard of a woman sleeping so much," Rin says, eyes downcast. 

Touka shrugs. 

"It happens," she replies. "Some over eat, some don't eat at all. Some sleep too much, others stay awake. No one reacts exactly the same."

She knew of women who came back from it that never wanted to be touched again. She knew women who had sex obsessively afterward. There were those who ended their marriages to become crones. Those who hurt themselves. And a precious few that recovered. 

Touka had thrown herself into her training afterward, determined to be several times as strong as the men that did what they did to her. She had been young, but clever. Had escaped after trapping them under a genjutsu meant to boil their brains inside of their skulls. She ran barefoot through the wilderness, pulsing her chakra into every tree she saw until finally, one curved around her and swallowed her up. 

Hashirama found her like that only hours later and had brought her back home. Tobirama stood sentinel outside her door while Hashirama told the elders what had happened. 

"She isn't eating," Kikue says, chewing at the skin on her thumb. "She'll get sick."

Momo presses her cheek into Touka's shoulder. Mito's gaze doesn't leave Tsubaki's still sleeping form. 

"If she gets a fever, then she'll want to eat," she replies. "You can only force her so much until she bites back. And if she bites back too hard..."

"She may not recover," Utano finishes. 

And a kunoichi that could not recover from the worst that could happen to them, was not a kunoichi that could survive in this world. 

She does not need to say it. All of the women in the room are aware of what is at stake if Tsubaki does not pull through. There will be no place for her on Mito's guard, and the Senju will not bother with her. 

In the best case scenario, she could be escorted back to Uzushio. She had a clan there. Minako was a good woman. She saw Tsubaki as her daughter. She would keep the girl safe on the island. 

But Touka has eyes. She's seen Mito look at Tsubaki, has seen Tsubaki do her damndest not to look back. These years were not easy for women like them, especially for Mito, who had a status to think about. Touka was not like her cousins. She was no one's firstborn, and she was not a genius of the Mokuton nor did she have a mind sharp enough to cut with a thought. 

She could take who she liked to bed and to wife. And through her sympathy for Hashirama (because how could he not know, how could he not see?) she feels the same stabs of pain for Mito as well. It was not easy to love someone that had been hurt. Touka's string of ex-lovers was tantamount to that experience. Her nightmares had driven many women out of her bed. 

No one that threatened to spill the blood of a family member over a common woman would give up now. For better or for worse, Touka knew that Tsubaki wasn't going anywhere. 

She only hoped that all of them could survive her staying.

* * *

There is a hand on her head, a tender one, with tender fingers carding through her short hair. There is a song, lilting sweetly on a pair of lips she cannot name. 

The light is interrupted, and it flickers through a screen. It falls in soft spots, making patterns of shadow. It makes it easier to open her eyes. She doesn't know what time of day it is. Can't really be sure if she's awake or asleep. The hand in her hair avoids the scar there, and gives her a sweet scratch at the nape of her neck. 

It smells like the sea, which is strange. Like daylight and ocean salt. Cotton, too. 

The hand leaves her scalp, and she wrinkles her nose. Then, there is something cool against her mouth and she notices how chapped her lips have become. Instinct is buried under miles of grief, of the haziness that comes with sleeping too much or sleeping too little. She opens her mouth, and a smooth chip of ice slips between them. 

She must drink a whole cup of water that way. She gets lost in the mechanics of it. Open mouth, then ice. Shut mouth, ice melts. Swallow. Open mouth. It's only when a little clump of rice comes to her mouth that she falters. 

The voice sings an ocean song. She opens her mouth and the rice is salty. There are pieces of shredded fish in it. She allows it. Chews. Swallows. Another clump of rice, and a salty piece of fish. Then a piece of broccoli. Carrot. Daikon. Small enough for a child to eat without choking on. 

She eats. The voice sings. She rests.

* * *

"You can't coddle her forever."

Mito wonders when she lost control of this childish attraction. She wonders when Rin saw it. Wonders how long it took for all of her Handmaidens to see it. Wonders how much of a fool she's made out of herself. 

"She'll be safer on Uzushio." 

She licks her fingers, tasting the salt there. Momo has always been sweet as her namesake. But now is not the time. 

"She's a soldier. Not a diplomat. Let her rest."

She wipes her hand on the thigh of her garment, unconcerned. She has stayed here against her better judgement for two days. Has foregone her husband's bed even in the early light. Tsubaki was more responsive at this hour, especially if a screen was put up to disrupt the light on her face. 

She would eat without trouble through the haze of half-sleep. 

_"Consider your position. How this is making you look to the Senju."_

She finds that she doesn't care. Or at least she doesn't care as much as she should. She knows where she stands with Hashirama, and that is what counts. Tobirama is a different story. Then again, her husband will be too, if he ever starts to suspect - 

She sniffs in her sleep, presses her face closer to Mito's knee. Reaches out a sleepy hand and bunches it in the fabric of her skirts. Like a child seeking comfort. Like a ship in need of mooring. 

She looks so peaceful. 

"Be careful," Utano says. "Please, Mito.  _Be careful._ "

Uzumaki himself loved like a storm. Mito is his descendant, and she is no exception.

* * *

 The chakra stops when the food begins, but that's alright. She listens to the ocean song, but stays far away at sea. She does not want to go back home. She does not know where home is. 

But at least she does not want to float forever. And that is something. 

Kurama takes that as the little victory that it is.

* * *

They make a camp halfway between the Senju and Uchiha territories for the peace talks. It is in an area that had not somehow been decimated by the fighting. 

Hashirama wants Mito there, as the woman whose people bore Nobi Tsubaki. He wants Tsubaki there as well, but knows that it might not be possible. The woman sleeps the days away. At first, he had thought it was because of the healing she had done, on top of the journey she had undergone to even make it to the fighting. But chakra exhaustion lasted seven days or less.

He tells Mito that if Tsubaki cannot stand on her own, she will not be invited. 

His pretty wife narrows her eyes, but turns her face into the palm of his hand. She must know it is only half the elders' decision. The Senju cannot afford to show that kind of weakness. Not now, when the war is so close to over. Not when an alliance is so close to being brokered. Finalized. 

He knows that she is not petty enough to hold herself away from him because of this, but he knows what Tsubaki means to Mito. She is a dearly beloved friend, and friends like that are not easily discarded. Hashirama would know.

He helps his wife onto her horse, a pretty white mare with speckles of grey along her throat. Mito is dressed in Uzushio colors because she is still an Uzumaki, and three of her shinobi in their contingent bear an Uzushio flag. It flutters alongside that of the Senju. 

Her handmaidens come, the well ones of course. He will not leave her without her guard. She seems more protective of them now. Less likely to let any one of them out of her sight. 

All but the one she must leave at home. 

She is not angry with him. She understands the decision and why it was made. She is unhappy, but she is too disciplined to let it show. She rides beside him into the middle field camp, and he helps her down from her horse after he dismounts himself. 

The Uchiha have already arrived, and stand beside their horses. Madara and Izuna stand in the center of the field, waiting. Izuna looks well, more color to him than when Hashirama saw him last, when he was newly healed, surviving a blow that would have killed anyone else in circumstances even slightly different.

Hashirama walks forward, Tobirama on his right and Mito at his left. His shinobi stand behind him, implacable. 

When he meets Madara, he offers his arm. Madara looks down at it, his eyes flickering from Tobirama to Mito, then over her shoulder. It's clear he's looking for Tsubaki. Whether to thank her for saving his brother's life, or to lambast her for some other reason (it was always difficult to tell with Madara), Hashirama can't say. 

"Old friend," and when he says it, Hashirama means it. Means the swell of pride, of relief that comes over him in a wave that threatens to knock him on his feet back into his childhood shoes. "Shall we begin?"

Madara looks down at it, and then at his brother. Izuna offers him a smile, a gentle lift of the corners of his mouth, and Madara takes his hand. 

"Let's do it, then," Madara says, and a smirk cracks the hard lines of his face. "Old friend."

* * *

The song disappears, and Sakura is at sea.

* * *

Madara doesn't know how to look at Tobirama without chafing. Without wanting to leap forward and rip his throat out and eat it, bleeding raw. Without wanting to just get his hands on him long enough to do - 

_Something._

Hashirama does not build a dwelling for the peace talks. Rather, he makes a damn gazebo of some kind. Gives them a roof to keep the sunlight from baking them, and provides enough chairs and a long table for the representatives of both clans to sit and speak at. He makes the table a long circle to avoid antagonizing anyone, and Madara wants to sneer because how  _terribly in character_ is that?

A number of the Senju elders are there, and so are most of the Uchiha elders. Half Madara insisted stay behind in case of an attack on their camp. He did not think Hashirama would stoop to such treachery, but the old people that had taught Butsuma how to lead a clan were the ones yanking Hashirama's chain. He trusted his friend, but not his awful grandparents. 

"Find this Tsubaki woman," one of his elders had croaked at him. "Offer her a place with the Uchiha. Her healing skills are valuable, and if she survived what I suspect she has, she will bear strong children."

The order had made him seek out the head of pink hair when the Senju had arrived (late). He had a vague idea of who they wanted to set Tsubaki up with. Madara had long ago made it abundantly clear that he would be producing no heirs under any circumstances, his attraction to men being chief among them. Izuna walked a better line, was partial to men, women, and pretty much everyone else. He was Madara's heir and a broodmare at that. 

It would be fitting, to marry Izuna off to the woman that had saved his life. Madara just wasn't so sure about how well it would work out, if the woman had been through what his elders supposed she had. 

Even without Izuna's potential betrothed around to make offers to, the peace talks are mostly that. Talking. The armed Uchiha stay several hundred meters back, as if they could not leap the distance if Madara so much as barked a command. The armed Senju are much the same. 

Madara doesn't like how performative it all seems. The waving flags. The hundreds of soldiers ready to resume the fighting if the talking only works out as well as it has in the past. The few elders assembled, patting themselves on the back for 'Always believing in the dreams of the children' as if they weren't the ones encouraging resentments on their own sides of the war. 

And he doesn't like being so close to Tobirama.

It makes him feel uncomfortable, wrong, confused,  _off_ to be so close to the man that nearly killed his brother. Tobirama is not a coward, so when Madara stares, of course he looks back, unflinching. Madara will not presume to know precisely what is going on in Tobirama's head, but he can presume the younger Senju feels no guilt for what he did. 

Tobirama's moral compass was an awful lot like Madara's. Anything for the sake of his people, for the sake of his brother. It is because they're so alike that Madara wants to peel the other man out of his skin. 

He knows that if it was Izuna that had killed Tobirama, or had gotten close to it, Izuna would feel little guilt as well. 

"This village of yours," crows a suspicious old man, "how will it be sustained?"

Hashirama nearly  _beams_ at the question, and he should be. Excited, that is. He's been waiting for years to answer these questions, and Madara is too busy trying to stare Tobirama to death to answer as quickly. 

"Trade," Hashirama says. "Trade with other tribes and clans in Fire Country and outside of it. There are expanses of steel, mineral deposits, not to mention the land here is fertile. I'm sure that with some time and effort, we would could build the village into a necessary outpost."

There's a tittering at that. The Uchiha weren't a farming people specifically, but the fertile soil beneath Amaterasu's volcano made them very particular about the land they cultivated and how. Growing things was very much a Senju tradition -if the way Hashirama's people seem to nod in affirmation- but the Uchiha were much more persnickety when it came to cultivating crops. 

"What other peoples? What other tribes?" 

Madara tries not to lean his chin into his hand and let Hashirama steer the conversation. To be honest, it would probably be much simpler to just decide the clans were allies and browbeat their people into sharing space. But peace talks were the more 'reasonable' option. They prevented infighting and dissatisfaction preemptively. 

"The Uchiha have the Hyūga for allies," Izuna pipes up, "but they are a mountain people, and their land is easily attacked. They would be willing to join with us."

He lifts an eyebrow at his younger brother, surprised at him. Izuna isn't really the political type. He's more of an airhead than anything else, though he's a very skilled fighter. 

"The Sarutobi have intermarried with the Uchiha on and off for several generations," Izuna offers. "We're very friendly with them. I'm sure they'd also be interested in such a concept."

"Bearing in mind that the village is a way to end the warring and to protect the clans of Fire Country by calling them under one banner," Hashirama interjects, nodding, even smiling at Izuna as he does, "I'd consider extending such offers to the Shimura, the Nara, the Akimichi, and the Yamanaka as well."

"The Aburame," Izuna adds, "they live near the Nara forests. They're a likely ally. The Inuzuka, perhaps - ," 

"And the Hatake?"

Madara's voice stops the mounting excitement between Hashirama and Izuna. Tobirama lifts a mean white eyebrow at him. His sister-in-law is silent. 

"The Hatake and the Inuzuka have trouble with the Nara. Poaching the deer," he says. "You'll have to convince the Nara to ally with people who have a history of stealing from their herds."

Hashirama's face falls. Izuna kicks him under the table. Madara forces a polite smile. He's very good at being the bearer of bad news. This may be his dream, too, but he doesn't want something as petty as deer theft to keep him away from it, and he doesn't want Hashirama and Izuna to feeding off of each other's exuberance to make them forget what's at stake if they fail. 

"The clanless shinobi."

Eyes turn away from Madara to Hashirama's wife. She sits, back erect, hands hidden discreetly in her sleeves. She holds attention very well, the Uzushio princess. 

"Will the clanless shinobi have a place in this village?" she asks. 

Madara's first instinct is to ask why in the hell that matters when the teachings of his childhood slap him in the back of the head. Amaterasu never turned away someone in need of her warmth, only ever denied wicked farmers the magnificence of her light during the growing seasons. 

So of course, he says, "Yes."

The Senju unanimously roar him down. 

"Clanless shinobi?"

"You mean bandits!"

"Why would we open our borders to bandits?"

"If they are clanless, what resources do they have to offer?"

"How can we be sure they won't lead raids on this so-called village?"

Hashirama looks flabbergasted at the question, and Madara has to wonder if he's ever thought about it before. The Senju were very specific on who they allied with, and that was the primary reason they had so few allies. The Uchiha at least had some consistency with the Hyūga; they were family, and they worshipped gods that were siblings. The Uchiha always put family first, and that meant, everyone they viewed as family. 

"They can join the village if they pay a fine!"

"If they swear fealty to the village, I'm sure that would suffice..."

"The village itself? It needs a leader!"

And that is enough to silence all of them. The Uchiha look to Madara. The Senju look to Hashirama. 

"How would such a leader be chosen?"

"The firstborn son - ,"

"The  _firstborn_ of - ,"

"The legitimate - !"

"The strongest shinobi - ,"

It shouldn't surprise Madara, how quickly everything falls to shambles. There are men and women on their feet, snapping at each other about how the village should be run before the village is even a twinkle in anybody's eye. 

Hashirama looks distressed. Izuna looks similarly unhappy. Tobirama has a vein ticking in his jaw, a vein that Madara wants to rip out with his teeth and also rip out with his  _teeth_. 

Hashirama's wife, on the other hand? Looks annoyed. 

She does not stand. Hardly raises her voice. But she lifts a hand to one of the tags dangling from her hair, and suddenly a pulse of chakra that smells like the ocean and sea breezes and fresh blood swallows the noise. 

The chakra is not malicious. But it is distinctly  _impatient_. 

It makes several shinobi draw their weapons, and makes the rest all look to see which fool has decided to destroy the first steps to peace in generations upon generations of fighting. 

"Am I among children?" 

Someone sputters in disbelief. Madara is pretty sure Izuna is laughing, the bastard. 

"I was not aware," she continues, "that the leaders, the elders, the firstborns of the oldest surviving clans in Fire Country was made up of children squabbling in a sandbox."

She spreads her hands on the table that her husband made, her eyes like freshly polished knives raking meanly over every assembled shinobi. 

"If there are no clanless shinobi, no craftsmen, no farmers, no day laborers," she continues, voice sharp and crisp as the folds of her kimono. "No one to build your houses. No one to cook your meals, to look after your children, to teach them. No one to share skills with, to trade internally."

Hashirama looks at his wife like she's the Sage of the Six Paths. Tobirama seems begrudgingly amused. 

The woman doesn't mind what anyone looking at her has to say. Rather, she leans back in her seat, eyes narrowed. 

"You will have no stable internal economy. You will have a group of clans that will isolate themselves without others to smooth out the gaps. You will have consistent intermarriages that result in children that will be born of first cousin and first cousin, ill because of the closeness of the blood." 

Someone must collect themselves enough to snap back at her, and Madara gets the feeling it's one of the Senju. 

"Of course the foreigner is spouting nonsense!" 

Tobirama and Hashirama both narrow their eyes. Madara lifts an eyebrow. Definitely a Senju then. The Uchiha never spoke to their women in such a manner. 

But before either of the men beside her can speak up, Mito commands the attention back around herself with something as innocuous as a tilt of her head. 

"Uzushio, my  _foreign_ land of origin, has been self sustaining for as long as Fire Country has been destroying itself from the inside."

She says it, and her voice is not sweet but it is kind. Simpering in the meanest possible way. 

"It is because we embrace every person on our island," she says. "Shinobi and noncombatants, those in our founding clans and those who are clanless alike. We are stronger because of it. Our leaders are nominated by blood and combat, but any person can nominate themselves to lead the island. And that nomination will be taken seriously."

That sends up another round of chatter and for a completely different reason. Madara didn't know that about Uzushio, that the Uzumaki did not pass down leadership by blood. That the woman in front of them did not rule simply because her parents did before her. 

That the  _people_ could nominate  _themselves_. That they were not always handpicked by the person that comes before them. That they could choose themselves, and perhaps even  _win_. 

"We are not Uzushio," the same man insists. "We are not some small island in the middle of the ocean."

"You're right," Mito concedes. "We are much larger, and we are all the more in need of allies. All kinds of allies."

The Senju don't seem happy, but the Uchiha clearly seem more amenable to the idea. After all, marrying the Hyūga and the Sarutobi had made the Sharingan appear more often in children, had made katon affinities twice and three times as strong. The acolytes of Amaterasu were trained in combat, but they were not front line fighters. They were the protectors of the temple, of the goddess herself. 

It is strange for Madara to realize, that his people have more in common with Hashirama's wife than Hashirama's people do. 

"The Uchiha," Madara says, leaning forward, snatching Mito's attention and the attention of those assembled, "are not opposed to such a population. Our own camp reflects as much; shinobi and noncombatants, those born into and those who marry into the clan."

Hashirama's wife regards him carefully, like he is a creature that might bite her but not before she got the chance to strangle it first.  

Then, she nods her head once. But nothing like a smile graces her face. She’s stonier than Tobirama, he’ll give her that. But there’s a warmth to her that confuses him a bit, because with a face that screams ‘capable of evisceration’, there is something in her eyes that says she sees him. Recognizes him as someone like her. 

Madara has always known that eyes didn’t need to have a doujutsu to be dangerous. He learns again looking at Uzumaki Mito. 

“Good,” she says. “I think your people and those of Uzushio will get along very well.”

Then, as if she hasn’t just been speaking to him, she casts her eyes back over the delegation and lifts a hand. She waves it and five women come to flank her, each of them wearing distinct garments with distinct coloring. 

“Now is too soon to speak of all such things at once,” she says. “We should delegate different subjects to different committees than will represent the best interests of their people.”

Madara nods and decides he likes Mito already.

”How should we divide them?” he asks. 

“I’m glad you asked,” she returns. “These are my Handmaidens, and they will represent Uzushio. Fubuki Rin will discuss  foreign affairs such as trade and alliances. Tatsumaki Momo will discuss domestic affairs between the Senju, Uzumaki, and Uchiha. Raiu Utano will handle agriculture and the works of craftsmen. Hisame Usagi and her interpreter will handle alliances with clans outside of ours. Unarigoe Kikue will discuss the best possible location for this village.”

Each woman steps forward as she is named, bowing her head politely at those gathered. There is a tittering of unsatisfied voices, mostly among the Senju, who are not quite used to women giving orders or even suggestions. 

“I, Uzumaki Mito,” she continues, “will help draft the process by which we will determine who will lead this village.”

 Madara smirks at the casual din beginning to rise, and the way Mito's women stare all the rest down, demanding to be belittled if anyone dared to do as much to their faces. 

"Izuna," Madara says, turning his eyes toward his brother. "You're bighearted. Too much of a people person. You're with the Hisame woman and her interpreter. Take the other bighearted people-people with you."

Izuna smiles at him in that way he does when Madara insults him and compliments him in the same sentence. 

"I'd be happy to ane-ja," he says, nodding politely. 

He stands, offers a smile to the Hisame woman, and they begin walking to meet each other. 

"Haru," Madara says, and the cousin is at his elbow in an instant. "I want you with foreign affairs. Gather Hakuto and Shigezane."

"Of course, Madara-sama," she replies, bowing her head, and leaving to gather the others. 

And for the Uchiha, it is easy. The come to him and he delegates their tasks as quickly and efficiently as Mito did with her women. Before long, the Uchiha and the Uzushio women have begun to splinter off, introducing themselves to one another and starting conversations. 

The Senju are slower to move. 

Hashirama was the outlier among his people. Where the Uchiha were hot as a rule, the Senju were cold. Hashirama's wishful thinking, his easy excitement, and cheerful way of being, they made him odd to his people. Tobirama was more of the norm. If anyone could be accused of being a second Butsuma, or even come close, it was him. 

He loved his brother, sure, but he was as severe as his father was. Even when Hashirama was at his most serious, Tobirama was still the brother Madara didn't want to fight on a bad day.

"I'll be with you, my lady," Madara says, rising from his own seat to approach Uzumaki Mito. 

She lifts a red eyebrow at him, but now that he's close to her, he can see the humor in her eyes. 

"Uchiha Madara," she says, foregoing the honorific.

It's reasonable for her to do so; they're of a rank, aren't they?

"How good to see that you are willing to be more reasonable than my in-laws."

She says it with a smile that makes Tobirama crack a laugh. Mito's good humor falters when Tobirama's rises, and Madara is curious about what exactly happened  _there_ to make that happen. 

"Mito," Hashirama says, darting out a hand to cover his wife's.

He looks at her like she's currently in the process of hanging the moon, and Madara supposes she is. It would have taken the two of them a lot longer to make their clans come to heel, and Mito had just pulled it off like it was easy. 

He beams at her, pride outweighing the cultural differences that made him balk earlier. And Mito smiles softly right back. 

"I'll be with Kikue-san about the location," he says, nodding to her. Then her eyes flicker to his brother, and Tobirama tilts his head to hear him speak. "Tobirama, I want you with Mito and Madara. You're more pragmatic than I am, and I think you'll make the better decisions."

Madara didn't know his stomach could fall out through his feet. His good mood leaves him so quickly, he's sure it must show on his face. Or at least something must, because the next look Mito flashes him is one full of sincere (if not somewhat agitated) sympathy. 

Great. At least he had someone on his side. 

"Of course, ani-ja," Tobirama says, and Hashirama gives him a fond smile and Mito's hand a squeeze before he stands to his full height. 

He drags Madara into a brief hug, the sharp squeezing kind that Hashirama is best at. Madara tries not to squeak when the other man crushes him into his arms, and he gives Hashirama a weak pat on the back.

"It's happening," Hashirama says as he pulls back, looking Madara full in the face. It's a bold move for a former enemy to look someone with a Sharingan dead in the eye.

"Our dream, Madara," Hashirama says, squeezing his arms. "Our dream is finally coming into reality."

Madara can't help the smile that cracks over his face, and the stubborn, light giddy feeling in his stomach. Hope has been hounding him these days. Making him believe in things he thought lost since childhood. 

He's starting to give it a chance. 

"It is?" he asks, as much wonder as a cynic can muster filling his voice. "It is, isn't it?"

* * *

 Touka is saddling up, preparing to head out to bring food and refreshments to the Senju camp. She's got ten others riding with her, four Uzushio and six Senju. She resents being given the woman's job of feeding the men, but she knows that things will change as soon as she reaches the place where peace talks are occurring. 

The Uchiha treated their women differently than the Senju did. And if she had something to say, she knew that someone other than her cousins and Mito would listen to her. 

She's got her leg swung over her horse when there's a presence just beside her, filling up her peripheral vision. She turns slowly, already more worried about spooking who's just snuck up on her than she is annoyed that she's been snuck up on. 

Tsubaki looks like death warmed over twice. She is thin from lack of eating, and there's no color to her face. She looks like she should be resting even though resting is all she's done in the days since her return to Senju territory. 

"I'm coming," she says, and her voice is a hollow, disused rasp. 

Touka looks her over. She put some attempt into dressing herself. She's in her Nobi purples, dressed sharply. The dressing on her bad eye has been replaced, and she's standing at her full height. She looks weak, yes, but she's standing, which is more than she's done in days. 

Touka wasn't given instructions on what to do with Tsubaki, on how to handle her. Mito had just said to keep an eye out for her, and had probably instructed Tsubaki's Nobi clansmen to do the same thing. 

In all honesty, she doesn't want Tsubaki to come. Not because of how the Uchiha will hound her when she will get to the peace talks, but because she isn't sure if walking back into the business of clan drama is what's best for her right now. 

But everyone coped differently. Some abandoned their work. Some threw themselves into it. Touka knows which one she chose when it was her turn. And it may go against her better judgement, and it may upset Mito, but Tsubaki is standing on her own two feet for the first time in days. 

She may get in trouble for giving Tsubaki a horse, but it will probably be worth it. If she needed to move around, she needed to move around. Recovery was a bumpy road, and Touka was not going to block Tsubaki if she was trying to get herself onto it. 

* * *

She misses the ocean song. She misses the hands in her hair. They are not Ino's hands, and it is not Ino's voice, and so she feels guilty. But she misses them nonetheless. They did not soothe the hurt. They did not make it easier to ignore. They did not dispel it altogether. But they were there, and that was enough. 

It was enough.

* * *

 Tobirama expected the Uchiha to be impossible. He did not count on the fact that the Uchiha had a similar societal and religious set up as the Uzushio shinobi. They get along like a house on fire. Mito is trading barbs with Madara like she has known him all her life, narrowing her eyes and picking meanly at his unruly hair and his short temper. Madara takes the bait every time, curses at Mito, swears up and down that she's a fool. 

But the two of them hammer out a rough idea of how to elect a public official faster than Tobirama thought was possible. 

He had assumed that his input would be helpful. Valuable even. But Mito and Madara hardly look at him. It's fair, he supposes. His decision on Tsubaki was still a wound for Mito, and it had only been days ago that Tobirama had nearly killed Izuna. 

But this was supposed to be a group affair, wasn't it?

When he leans back in his seat and looks around, it's to find that all of the Uchiha and the Uzushio shinobi appear to be coming to a common understanding. Almost unanimously, the Senju are left in the dust. It isn't as if they can't keep up, but their ways are more strict, more rigid. The Uchiha flickered from one thing to the next like the fire they favored, and the Uzushio shinobi were as fluid as the water that surrounded him. 

The Senju were like the trees that the few of them could create; stubborn, slow to change, and to grow. They could be molded, and their minds could be changed, but only with time, and a careful hand. 

The activity around them is probably giving Tobirama's poor cousins whiplash. It's like being around several hundred Hashirama's at once; overwhelming to say the least. 

But things get done. Mito's Handmaidens by no means lead the conversations, but they do start them, and they lean back to allow the Senju and the Uchiha to speak in turn. They hash out old clan politics, not just of the Uchiha and the Senju, but of the Shimura and the Aburame, and every other clan of status in Fire Country. They discuss natural resources, what can be maintained and what needs to be cultivated, and where borders should be drawn. 

Tobirama is pleasantly surprised. He isn't the type to hope overmuch. He's seen his brother's sadness eat at him, and he knows the cost of optimism. But seeing people from cultures that are so distinct from one another bend their heads together under a common goal (and Mito's absurdly stern fist) is more refreshing than he was anticipating it to be. 

And he wasn't anticipating much at all.

"It can't only be the person with the best combat prowess," Mito says. "That will just allow brute strength to decide who should lead an entire country's worth of people."

"Politics can't decide it entirely either," Madara counters. "Some schmoozy manipulator will be able to weasel their way in easy."

"A combination of the two, like we have on Uzushio," Mito suggests. 

"But different enough so that we aren't copying their system," Madara finishes, nodding. 

"There are many more people in Fire Country. I don't know if a vote of all peoples in the village would be effective," Mito says. "It might become a popularity contest."

"Then we restrict the vote," Madara says, shrugging. 

Mito narrows her eyes. 

"Then it becomes a dictatorship."

"All forms of leadership are dictatorships," Madara replies. 

Mito scratches her chin with her thumb at that, and it's clear she thinks Madara is full of shit. Tobirama is inclined to agree. But he hasn't been this close to Madara without actively trying to kill him in some time, and it's - it's difficult. 

Madara had looked  _devastated_ when Tobirama did what he had to Izuna. And even now, Tobirama isn't sure of why he did it. Had he intended to kill Izuna? Was that what he had wanted? Or was he trying to protect himself, protect his brother? Had he ever fought sincerely with Izuna? And why had that day been different?

Was he showing off the Hiraishin? Had his pride gotten the better of him? He was a man in the middle of a war, and battle fog could take anyone's mind at a moment's notice. Tobirama liked to think he was better disciplined than that. But if he was so disciplined, why had he nearly ended the life of the one person that could hold Madara's ear better than anyone else could? 

 "The clans should vote," Mito suggests. "But a delegate of some kind. A representative for the noncombatants should also have a say. And that person should be voted in by the noncombatants as well."

Madara narrows his eyes and folds his arms across his chest. 

"That's too many people."

"That's the people being represented by their government," Mito says, as if she's correcting him.

Tobirama is inclined to agree with Madara. People could be easily swayed, easily manipulated. If one candidate that was rotten to the core could put on a nice enough face, they could trick an entire populace into following them. 

"The vote should be unanimous," he says. "A vote between the current clan heads and the delegate of the noncombatants; a vote between the proposed Council of Elders of the Clans; and a third council of noncombatants."

Mito and Madara both look unhappy at his interruption, but Mito at least seems to consider it. 

"Three councils?" she asks. "That seems like too many, cousin."

"It means a more thorough vetting process," he replies. "You're the one that wants to give noncombatants such a large say in who leads the village."

She narrows her eyes but acquiesces. Madara seems less likely to agree from the wrinkle between his eyebrows. It's clear that he's caught between shutting Tobirama down and conceding the point as well. 

A ruckus keeps them from continuing the conversation. All heads turn to where twelve horses appear, riders banging drums to announce their arrival. 

"Refreshments," Mito says, cracking her neck. "Excellent. I think we all have earned a break."

"We've hardly ironed anything out," Madara snipes. 

Mito huffs out a breath through her nose and gets to her feet.

"We'll reconvene with the others," she explains. "See where they've gotten. And little by little, every day, we will move forward."

She says it with a surety that Tobirama only hears his brother use. When she says it, he believes it.

He stands himself, popping his back as he does. Hashirama had used his Mokuton to create several more gazebos for the committees Mito had created, and each of them stands, excited at the prospect of food. 

Tobirama looks out at the twelve shinobi. He recognizes Touka's distinctive head of hair and the chakra of the other Senju. The Uzumaki are always bright beyond compare, but it's the twelfth signature that makes him falter. 

Tsubaki is with them. 

He knows that he does not have to apologize. Not particularly. Tsubaki was a war child, and she understood how those things worked. When there was a group to protect, a single sacrifice was better than losing more people than they had to. 

At least, that was what Tobirama had been told. And it was what he believed. The best for the whole necessitated some infringement on the few. But it was rare that he had to look one of those few in the face, knowing that it was his decision that led to what Touka and the other women thought happened to her. 

He knew Tsubaki tore at her face in her sleep. That she vomited. That she did not eat. That she slept, kept her eyes shut more than she kept them awake. If he could have known this is what would have happened to her when he ordered Mito to stand down those months ago, he isn't sure if he would have made a different decision. 

Tobirama was a shinobi. He knows what trauma comes with the territory. Kunoichi often had it worse than most, though they were not always the rule. Shinobi got similar treatment to a lesser extent. He had never suffered from it, but he knows of those that had. 

And for whatever it was worth, he was sorry in a small way. But he didn't regret what he had done. 

Touka's party approaches and they all begin to unload their horses and their wagons. They set up in the middle of Hashirama's many covered tables, starting cook fires to reheat what had already been prepared and to cook what would have not been good to eat if made earlier. 

Touka abandons the cooks to their work to come to Tobirama's side. She throws an arm around his shoulder, grinning as she does. Tobirama allows it; the Senju and the Uchiha have all been drawn towards the smell of cooking food, eager to ignore the business they have been attending to. The Uzushio shinobi leap into action to help Touka's team set up, hospitality running deep in their blood. 

"You look like you've been eaten alive," Touka says, knocking her hip against his. 

Tobirama snorts, lets a half smile onto his face. Ignores the way he can feel Madara's eyes on him. 

"And spat back out," he replies. "Uzushio women are all monsters."

Touka positively beams at him, showing all her teeth and squinting her eyes. 

"Aren't they though?" she asks. "Doesn't it make you love em' more?"

Tobirama rolls his eyes. 

"I'm not bedding one, so no."

"Don't be crass," Touka snaps, clucking her tongue. "I'm  _courting_ Momo."

"Into your bed."

Touka flicks him in the ear, and the only thing that stops them from devolving into a petty squabble is the sound Mito makes when Tsubaki joins the fray. 

Mito looks  _hurt_. As if Tsubaki's appearance is both a best and a worst case scenario. Tsubaki herself looks well. Better than she did when Tobirama last saw her. At least now she is fully dressed, with enough color in her cheeks to tell him that she's been eating more regularly than she had been before.

"Mito-sama," she says, bowing her head politely. "I apologize for my absence from your guard. Now that I am well again, I would like to be of service to you again."

Mito swallows hard, and Tobirama wants to turn Madara's curious gaze away, wants to turn away himself. He isn't used to seeing Mito look so caught between her public and private personas. So at a sudden loss of which part of herself she should speak sincerely for. 

"I've traveled most of Fire Country," Tsubaki continues. "And I've met a great number of people from all walks of life. I could help with where to place the village, or how to best bring other families into the fold."

Tobirama stiffens. The discussions of the potential village in the Senju compound had been private, and he doubted that Mito or her handmaidens would give her such information in her fragile state. 

How oddly intuitive. 

He says nothing. Adds it to the list of odd things about this woman, the growing list of things he does not trust about her. And Mito speaks. 

"Go wherever you think you will be of the most help," she says. "Kikue is discussing the location of the village with my husband. Usagi and Madara-san's younger brother are discussing alliances with other clans."

Tsubaki nods, and Tobirama can see her relax minutely. Orders calmed her down. Maybe that was a good thing. If she was becoming more docile, it might make it easier to later extract the information that he wanted out of her; where she had come from, what she was hiding under her eyepatch, and why she knew more than a woman of her status ought to. 

Tsubaki takes a half step forward, but then must think better of herself. She nods again, more briskly this time, and then she turns and leaves to find Kikue and Hashirama. 

Mito looks positively rattled. 

"We should eat," Touka says, breaking up the unsteady silence. "Let's go eat."

* * *

 

It was a good first day, all things considered. Mito was surprised by how well the shinobi from two rival clans seemed to fall in line. 

"It's because they've never met a woman like you before, Mito," Hashirama says on their ride back to Senju territory, glowing with pride. 

Mito smiles at him, and she's proud of herself as well. She knew she had more of a head for diplomacy than her husband and her brother-in-law, and now she was able to show it. She had managed to start up five committees to outline how this so-called village would operate. And they would meet, and continue meeting every day between Senju and Uchiha territory until they had a stable enough plan to move forward and found the damn thing. 

Her pride tells her that it wouldn't have been possible without her. The pink head of hair in the corner of her eye tells her a different story. 

Tsubaki had gotten out of bed. Had gotten on a horse, and had brought herself, had  _brought herself_ with Touka's team to the peace talks. She isn't sure whether or not she should be proud or infuriated. 

Izuna had practically fawned over her, willing to take Tsubaki to the side and personally thank her for saving his life. Madara had done the same, and several of the Uchiha had periodically come up to Tsubaki to thank her for her act of mercy. 

Mito had watched Tsubaki take every little 'thank you' and every word of praise with a smile. Some of them managed to make her relax. Other times, she seemed like she was ready to bolt for her horse, and ride back into the heart of Senju territory. 

"It was a good first day," she says, reins of her mare easy in her hand. "We will see how the next days go."

"They'll be wonderful," Hashirama says, his optimism threatening to become infectious. "We can do this. All we had to do was to stop the fighting. That was the hardest part. Now that they're willing to  _talk_ to one another, the rest will be easy."

Mito is inclined to agree with him. The Uchiha's reverent worship of the family dynamic with their mother goddess Amaterasu at the center was startlingly similar to the gods and family dynamics of Uzushio. With Uzushio shinobi playing as the bridge between the Uchiha and the Senju, things could perhaps move as smoothly as Hashirama was convinced they would. 

She lets his faith, his excitement buoy her all the way back to Senju territory. She allows him to help her off of her horse, but his broad hands stay on her waist longer than she expects them to. 

"I would like to see you tonight, if I may."

Mito's breath stutters in her chest. It's the first time he's ever asked that of her. Usually, she comes to him. He has let her set their pace. 

She passes off her surprise (mixing with dread, with apprehension, with disappointment and guilt and  _fraud_ ) as the shyness. She plays the blushing bride well when she can be bothered to put on the rouge. 

"I will," she says, not meeting his eye. 

Hashirama presses his lips to her forehead, then to her temple, then to the corner of her mouth. Then he smiles at her, and rubs his thumbs in small circles on her waist. 

"I'll see you," he says. 

Then, Tobirama is beside him, and the brothers are gone. Mito feels like she needs to be kept steady. She holds herself up, swallows thickly as her women surround her. They fall into formation, and none of them have to compensate for the missing body. 

Tsubaki goes back into the fold as if she hasn't been missing. 

They make it all the way into Mito's private rooms before the storm in her reaches its peak. She feels herself settle into the eye of it, and she dismisses her women with a sharp flick of her hand. 

Tsubaki goes to leave as well, but Mito stops her with a sharp glance. The pink haired woman falls into line, stands at attention, waiting for further orders. 

"Why are you out of bed?" 

The question is brutal in the silence. Mito feels her anger puffing up inside of her, warring against her concern. Tsubaki has not been faking her pain. Mito had to  _hand feed_ her, she has been so lost from herself. There is no reason Tsubaki should be up and moving before she is ready.  _None_. 

"Don't you know you will agitate a wound by moving before it is healed?" she asks, eyes narrowed. 

Tsubaki says nothing. Her green eye stares straight ahead over Mito's shoulder, and the anger begins to win. 

"You had no business coming to the peace talks today - ,"

"I disagree."

Her voice is softer than Mito expected. Quieter. Demure. Like she has been waiting for this dressing down, and has already prepared for her remarks. Mito rolls back her shoulders and stares Tsubaki down. 

"Why?" she asks, voice clipped. 

"For precisely the reasons I gave to you," Tsubaki replies. "I know Fire Country well. I know its people, I know the land. I'm being of service to you, to the Senju, and to the Uchiha."

Mito's eyes widen and her arms fall to her sides. 

"You," she says, trying to choose her words carefully, "are not a _tool_ to be used, Tsubaki."

She flinches. The smallest movement, but it's there, and it gives Mito a toehold. 

"I am a shinobi of Uzushio," Tsubaki says. "I am a woman of the Nobi. I tend their fires. It is my sworn duty to protect you, Mito-sama - ,"

"Mito."

Tsubaki stops talking. 

"I've told you time and time again to call me 'Mito'," she says. Mito lifts a hand to her forehead, the storm in her tilting into confusion and into exhaustion.

"You obey every order. You do what you are told. Why won't you do this?"

Tsubaki says nothing. Mito rubs her hands together. She wants to pace, but she knows that if she starts to unravel, Tsubaki will probably call for one of the other Handmaidens, and that is the last thing that Mito wants. 

"You - ,"

She stops herself and takes a breath. Fights down her frustration. Yashiro was like this when he came back. Obstinate. Forcing himself to go too soon if he wasn't drowning himself in doing nothing at all. Hurting himself by making himself of service to others. 

"You have been hurt," Mito says. "And it is a wound that I cannot see. A wound that you are ignoring by doing too much too soon."

Tsubaki's silence fills the spaces between Mito's heartbeats. Mito shakes her head and tries to find the words, tries to find something,  _anything_ that will make Tsubaki look like the woman she was before all of this happened to her. 

"You are my friend, Tsubaki. Not just a Handmaiden. Not just a Nobi. Not just a tool to be used and discarded. You're a  _person_."

"I am a shinobi," Tsubaki replies. 

"And a woman," Mito snaps. "A ward. A daughter, an older sister. A healer, a teacher. A survivor."

Mito can feel the urge to break something, the urge to weep building in her stomach. 

"A wife," she continues. It makes Tsubaki's nostrils flare. "A widow."

Tsubaki stands her ground, and it is a show in her restraint because Mito can feel her chakra flaring, her desperate urge to lunge at Mito only stopped by the loyalty she feels, by the fact that she will be executed if she raises a hand to her. 

" _Don't - ,_ " 

And the word is full of grief so human and sincere that Mito crosses the space between them and doesn't think to stop herself. She wraps her arms around Tsubaki, drags her into a hug. They're of a height, Tsubaki only a little bit taller, but Mito pulls her down, drags her in, and  _holds_ her. 

"Do you have  _any_ idea how worried I was for you?" she asks, her voice a harsh whisper. "Do you have any idea how much I prayed? How much sleep I lost wondering what had happened to you?"

Tsubaki's hands are shaking where they refuse to touch Mito, but Mito doesn't care, can't make herself care when she has Tsubaki finally,  _finally,_ and will not let her go. 

"I fought Tobirama to go after you. I fought my Handmaidens. I fought every instinct I have so that I wouldn't go after you. I wanted to chase that man who took you into the wild _myself._ I thought I lost you."

She only notices that the tears have come when her cheeks are wet. Only hears it when her voice cracks. Only feels it when Tsubaki softens,  _softens_ in her grip, and the tremor in her hands stills for a perfect moment. 

"You have to  _stop_ ," she insists. "You have to slow down. You have to take your time. Or we'll lose you. And I don't - I - ,"

Mito pulls back and looks at her, arms still wrapped around Tsubaki and stares into that one green eye, and she is overcome with the depth of what she feels and how  _quickly_ it came to her. 

"Don't make me lose you, Tsubaki." 

And she knows exactly what possesses her to do it. She knows that it is foolish and unreasonable, that she should not, for any number of reasons. But when she presses her lips to Tsubaki's, she cannot call it a mistake. 

She has wanted this for  _months_. 

Tsubaki's mouth is soft under hers, yielding, and her still hands settle on Mito's hips. It is just a press of lips, and then Mito presses further, sliding her lips against Tsubaki's, and then it is _more._

The storm inside of her is quiet and roaring all at once, her stomach hot and her body too close and not close enough all at once and Mito feels like she has something to prove, has to prove that she's reason enough for Tsubaki to get better, to survive and survive again. 

To love again. 

And she is crying because she cannot stop, but her hands are on Tsubaki's face, her hollow cheeks, and Mito wants to fix it, wants to make it better, wants to make it so there isn't ever a reason for Tsubaki to feel so low and small and distant again.

Tsubaki opens her mouth to the kiss, and Mito feels the tide open its maw to swallow her. 

The door slides open. 

They spring apart as quickly as they snapped together. Tsubaki's green eye is wide and startled and Mito feels winded. There is light from the hallway pooling into the darkness of Mito's room, and Rin speaks only once before she shuts the door again.

"Your husband is waiting for you."

Her voice is clipped. Hard and cold. Mito feels her blood still in her veins, feels Tsubaki stiffen. Feels Tsubaki's chakra tighten around her as she prepares to disappear. 

Tsubaki is gone in a shushin, and Mito is breathless and alone. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> some [lovely art](https://its-amihan.tumblr.com/post/175511116404/a-quick-mitosaku-from-the-formerones-fic-before) for this chapter was provided by its-amihan and it makes my heart THUMP


	16. Chapter 16

Mito's hands tremble, but she goes to him. There's no time to find Tsubaki, no reason she should, not really. She isn't sorry for what she's done, but she's willing to apologize. It's entirely possible that she read a signal wrong, or that she behaved hastily. But her lips burn with the unacknowledged truth that is suddenly stark naked between the two of them. 

Tsubaki had kissed her back. 

Mito's stomach churns with it. Boils with it. This entire time, she hasn't been foolish. Hasn't been wandering aimlessly with a crush so embarrassing every person on her guard can see it clear as day. 

Tsubaki hadn't run because she didn't want Mito to kiss her. She had run because they had been  _caught_. 

Mito knows she will be demanding the impossible as soon as she sets her mind to do it. On Uzushio, it wasn't possible to have a loving-wife and a lawful-husband without clear communication. The way she's carrying on now, it's as if she's having an affair. And Mito will not suffer a blow to her integrity. 

She's an honest person. Sometimes to the point of unintended hostility. She is no liar. 

She goes to his chambers, shuts her doors behind her and ignores the way she can feel Rin's chakra tailing her. It prickles at her; she doesn't need an escort. 

She arrives at Hashirama's rooms with little difficulty, and flares her chakra once before stepping inside. The lighting in his room is low and the smell of sage is thick in the air. Mito takes a steady breath and steps further inside. 

Hashirama is naked at the waist, his long hair pulled into a tight braid that hangs over his shoulder. His gaze turns to her when she enters. His eyes are too kind for what she is about to tell him. 

"Mito," he says, holding out his hand so she can join him. 

He's wearing her clip in his hair. It reminds her that she needs to get him new ones, have better ones made. She had promised him that, hadn't she? How quickly she had forgotten.

"Hashirama."

She doesn't move from where she stands. Concern lights up his face, and he gets to his feet. He crosses the space, bridges the gap between them when he realizes that she will not. 

"What's wrong?" he asks. 

Mito presses her lips together. She breathes slowly, gathers her bearings. Her mother did not raise a coward. Her father did not raise a liar. 

"I haven't been completely honest with you."

His brows furrow in confusion. Mito holds her chin up, stares her husband in the eye. She won't look away. She has to be able to look at him full in the face when she does this. 

"What is it?" he asks. "Is there something wrong?"

She opens her mouth to say it, when something fierce and sharp pokes hard in her belly. It's a flare of some kind, an odd discomfort. She narrows her eyes, has a little flinch. It takes her by surprise. She stalls, only for a second to cycle her chakra through her system. She feels around the storage seal at her throat, through her tenketsu system. Focuses around her stomach. 

An odd little coil. Something new. 

The color drains from Mito's face. 

"Mito?" Hashirama's hand comes up to her shoulder, another gently cupping her cheek so he can gauge her temperature. "Mito, what's happened? Are you alright?"

It was dangerous, to speak about pregnancy before the child had been alive for a year. It invited spirits to meddle. It was best to name a child after they survived their first winter, to be sure they were strong enough to survive, to live a full life. 

Mito swallows hard. She'll be trading one secret for another. 

"You knew when I came here that even though my people gave you my hand, they could not give you my heart."

The little coil in her belly flickers. Picks up traction. Pulls on her chakra now that it recognizes what it is. 

Hashirama's gaze goes from concerned to guarded. His hand leaves her cheek, his fingers go deceptively light on her shoulder. 

"Before I came here," she continues, "before I knew you, I had already given it to someone else." 

He doesn't say anything. Mito doesn't really expect him to. She's almost surprised she's made it this far. Hashirama had been patient with her for as long as he had known her. She's grateful for it now. But the way his expression shutters makes Mito feel unsteady. 

In the brief time she's known him, she's never seen him look quite like this. 

"In Uzushio, it is customary to take a lawful-husband and a loving-husband, a lawful-husband and a loving-wife, or vice versa," she says, mouth feeling dry, "if both partners in the marriage agree to it. It stops resentment in political matches. It keeps people happy, helps bear more children."

"We're not in Uzushio."

His voice doesn't stop her. It stings. Mito never thought Hashirama would ever talk about her homeland in such a cold voice, would ever bring up the fact that she is different from him in so many ways in any voice other than a reverent, curious one. 

"I'm not asking you for a loving-wife," Mito says. "I'm telling you that there is someone that I - that there is someone who has my heart -,"

"Is it one of your guard?" 

His voice isn't cold, but it is empty, and that is enough to give Mito pause. He looks right into her eyes, demanding the truth as much as she is demanding to be allowed to say it. 

"Everything I have done, I have done out of duty to the Senju and to the Uzumaki - ,"

"Is it Rin?" he asks. 

"I do not regret what I have done, but I am sorry, from my very soul if I have hurt you in the process - ,"

"Not Rin, then. Utano?"

"I wanted to be your friend. In Uzushio, it is possible to - ,"

"We are  _not_ in Uzushio."

He takes his hand off her shoulder, and the loss of physical contact tells Mito all she needs to know. She stops talking, tries to regroup. Hashirama is still close, very close, but he gets more and more distant by the moment.

"Who is she?" he asks. "Is she still on the island or is she here?"

Mito wishes for water. Her mouth feels absurdly dry now that she is finally saying aloud what she has been waiting to say, what she has been denying herself for months.

"She is here."

"Is she in your guard?" 

"She is." 

Hashirama doesn't curse. He goes cold all over. It's like watching his sunlight turn into Tobirama's ever present cool. It's uncanny. Uncomfortable. Mito doesn't like it. Doesn't like having to reconcile the Hashirama that she has come to know with the one that is standing in front of her right now. 

"I'm not surprised," he says, voice low. "I did not expect you to love me. I thought when you came to me the first time, you were doing it out of duty. The rest, I thought - ,"

He sucks his teeth, and the sound is loud in the quiet of his room. 

"I was wrong," Hashirama murmurs. He rubs his forehead, turning away from her. "My parents did not love each other. I had hoped at least, that you and I could be friends. That we could come to care for each other in a way that they did not."

She doesn't make the mistake of reaching for him. She is a better woman than that. She is smarter than that. 

"We can," she says. "We are."

Hashirama shakes his head. 

"I did not expect to be lied to."

She does not defend herself. Does not say she did not lie. 

"Do you make love to her?" 

The question floors her. Mito's eyes widen in surprise, but Hashirama's gaze is steady. She collects herself, pulls herself to her full height when she realizes that she has begun to slouch. 

"My body is yours," she says. 

"That isn't an answer."

She bristles at that. 

"When I married you, I swore an oath," Mito says, narrowing her eyes even as she tries to explain herself. "My womb belongs to the Senju and to Uzushio."

"And who do your breasts belong to?" he returns, dark eyes glinting in the low light. "Your thighs? Your cheeks? Your hands, your hair?"

"You," she insists. "To you, and to Uzushio." 

"Your lips?"

She hesitates. He sees it. 

"I have been true to you," Mito says. "I have been  _faithful_ since we have been married - ,"

"Tell the whole truth," Hashirama says softly. "Nothing by halves. You've done more than you say you have, I can hear it in your voice."

Mito bites the inside of her cheek. He's right, and she doesn't like it. 

"I've kissed her."

It makes him flinch. 

"Only once," she continues. "And no more since that instance."

Hashirama pinches the bridge of his nose. He starts to pace, then stops himself. Forces himself to stand still. His back is to her, and she can't read him like this.

They stand like that in a silence that Mito knows she isn't allowed to break. She's said all she's been able to say. By rights, he's allowed to do what he will. She won't let him kill her, won't let him raise a hand to her without bringing the full force of her shinobi down on him before he could try. But she will not deny him his hurt or his outrage with what she has confessed. 

"I commend your honesty," he mutters, and he sounds like he's wringing the words out of himself. "You should have told me sooner. I would not have expected so much of you." 

She can't make herself believe that. The Senju were stiff. She doubted Hashirama would allow her a loving-wife, even if he wanted one as well. The Senju seemed to be sticklers about monogamy. 

"I think you should return to your chambers," Hashirama says on the edge of a slow breath out. "And I do not think you should come back to mine until I send for you." 

That much she can accept. She nods slowly, bows her head to him before taking a few steps back, and excusing herself from his rooms. The last she sees of him is his back, still turned to her. 

When she gets back to her chambers, there is no Tsubaki waiting in her bed to write stories onto her palm. Utano is there to play her double, and she doesn't touch Mito when they settle down to sleep. 

* * *

"Inori!" she barks, throwing her leg off Haruhi's side. Shikaro leaps off the deer summon's back and marches right up to the front gates of the Yamanaka compound. She knows Inori is in, can feel his shadow shifting inside his rooms. 

"Inori! Oi!" 

She feels a telltale nudge at her mind, and Shikaro guides her steps inside the compound. She waves a hand and Haruhi stands with the other Yamanaka guards, waiting for her return. 

The piece of paper in Shikaro's grasp threatens to burn a whole through it. When she had first looked at it, she had been incredulous. The Senju and the Uchiha had called off their fighting, and were looking for clans to ally with. They were building a village. She had half a mind to burn it when the missive first came into her hands. It had to be a trick of some kind.

Then Choujinki had contacted her, talking similar nonsense, and Shikaro knew it couldn't have been as much of a joke as she thought it was. 

When she comes upon Inori, he's sitting in the private gardens his clan carefully cultivates. Stalks of hair from his long blond ponytail are twisted around his fingers in thought. A childhood habit, one that Choujinki had kindly teased him about when he was old enough to have grown out of it. 

He only really does it in battle now, or when he's thinking very seriously. It's a good sign to Shikaro. She likes Inori best when he's serious. 

"Choujinki got one of these, too," she says, though she doesn't need to tell him what she's talking about.

She can feel Inori inside of her mind, diving directly into the space that she's opened up. She guides him into her memories of the occasion, the straight backed woman with red hair in buns, and the Senju woman with the severe face at her side. She lets him see Choujinki's letter in her mind.

Inori produces a similar piece of paper from his pocket, holds it up for her to see, while still twirling his hair on his fingers. Shikaro doesn't bother taking it. She knows what it says. 

"They're not asking for just one of us," she says. "They're asking for all three."

The Yamanaka, the Akimichi, and the Nara were a package deal. They had been allies for as long as the Senju and the Uchiha had been fighting. One did not make a decision without consulting the other. 

"They're offering land, protection," Shikaro says, arms folded across her chest. "Access to their resources. They've already got the Sarutobi and the Hyūga. They're gathering clanless shinobi as well. Tradesmen, craftspeople."

"A village," Inori says, nodding slowly. "They plan to make a civilization out of us."

Shikaro snorts. 

"Out of themselves more like."

"Senju Hashirama's wife came here, as well as one of his cousins," Inori says. "They hand delivered it."

Shikaro nods, tapping her foot, a little impatient. She doesn't like problems she can't solve. She's a damnably clever woman, she has to be to lead a clan of damnably clever people. And she's been trying to figure out how the Uchiha and the Senju could possibly have come to a truce of  _any_ kind. 

"I can hear you thinking, Shikaro," Inori says wryly. 

Shikaro snorts again, plops down beside her old friend and brings a knee up to her chest. The way Inaro holds his hair, she holds her knee close to her, perches her chin on top of it. 

"You can always hear me thinking, mind-reader."

Inori rolls his eyes. He looks around at the bushes flourishing with new life around them. 

"Have you considered that this isn't a trick of some kind?"

Shikaro looks at him, eyebrow raised. Inori laughs. 

"War's made you paranoid." 

"No," Shikaro snaps, "the Inuzuka and the Hatake fighting over who gets to poach from our herds made me paranoid."

Inori leans over and jostles her shoulder a bit, just enough to make her loosen up.

"I'm inclined to believe that they'll be invited into this business as well."

Shikaro groans. 

"Perish the thought," she replies, "but I think you're right. If the three of us were brought into the fold, and the Hyūga and the Sarutobi have already agreed, there's no doubt that every other clan from here to the borderlands will be invited as well."

Inori nods. They sit a while in the quiet, both pondering the same thing. Inori's mind is a tender buzz in Shikaro's ear, a sound that she's gotten used to over time. Their connection is strong, the one the three of them have. Shikaro can find Inori and Choujinki's shadows from the bowels of her family's forests. Inori is always in the back of both of their minds, a subtle, comfortable reminder of their bond. And Choujinki? He brings himself to them, always bearing gifts of food and blankets. He grounds them more than he could possibly know. Him and his butterfly summons, iridescent and sneaky and beautiful, always watching, always careful.

"You think it's a good idea."

Inori chuckles. 

"Am I so easy to read?"

"Yes."

He laughs outright at that and jostles her again. Shikaro smiles and nudges him back. 

"They're holding a gathering soon," Inori says, "for all the clans they're inviting into this endeavor. I think the three of us should go."

Shikaro lifts an eyebrow, presses her lips into the fabric of her pants. 

"The Hyūga are noble, but stubborn. If they're willing to join, it might be good for us as well. The Sarutobi are honorable. They wouldn't walk into this blindly." 

"They're allies of the Uchiha," Inori replies. "If this village becomes a reality, we should be wary of their influence."

Shikaro shrugs a shoulder. 

"If there are three of us, and three of them, then the Senju would break the tie." 

Inori tugs a little on his ponytail. 

"From what I've heard," Meaning of course, from what his boar summons have discovered on their occasional rampages through Fire Country, "the Shimura are considering joining up as well."

Shikaro narrows her eyes. The Shimura. A clan not well renown for a doujutsu or for a kekkei genkai, or especially powerful nature transformations that ran in the blood. But for sheer battle prowess. The Uchiha had the Sharingan, the Senju had the Mokuton. But the Shimura? No one wanted to go up against a Shimura shinobi, clan techniques aside. 

They were a noble clan as well. Not stubborn, per se, but steely. Hard. Resolved. If the Shimura were interested in joining this village of Hashirama and Madara's, then whoever else joined the village would become an ally of probably the best all around warriors currently living in Fire Country. 

"Not to mention the Uzumaki and their fuinjutsu," Inori muses. "What I wouldn't give to get my hands on that."

"Some of your independence, probably."

Inori shrugs, concedes the point. 

"The Yamanaka gave up some when they allied with the Nara and the Akimichi. Losing more to gain more makes an even balance."

"Or it builds debts. Makes you a target." 

Inori turns, looks at her. 

"Our forebearers took that chance. I think we ought to as well."

Shikaro leans back on the heels of her hands. She stares straight ahead while her friend, her ally looks at her. 

"You've made up your mind then." 

Inori nods. 

"I have."

Shikaro huffs out a breath, kicking out the leg that hangs over the bench. 

"You'll drag me and Choujinki both into hell," she breathes. 

"Perhaps," Inori replies. "The two of you are welcome to break our alliance and leave the Yamanaka to their folly."

A butterfly catches Shikaro's eye. Bright blue as the sky overhead. It flutters down, landing on Shikaro's knee where it still hovers near her chest, then lifts off, and lands on where Inori still holds his hair. 

Shikaro sucks her teeth. 

"Well," she muses, "I can't leave the both of you to this nonsense. You'll die without someone there to figure out a back up plan."

Inori leans into her again, and this time he doesn't pull away. The butterfly lifts off his fist and lands on Shikaro's nose. She holds back her sneeze, and doesn't bother praying. 

The future of Fire Country is upon them, and they will be there to see it.

* * *

Peace talks with the Uchiha move forward faster than Tobirama expects them to. They're able to bring the Hyūga and the Sarutobi into the fray with relative ease, and Tobirama bends his head together with Mito to pick the Senju that are least likely to start an incident if they went scouting for allies. 

It surprises him. The Uchiha agree to a complete armistice because of Tsubaki's work saving Izuna's life. Tobirama isn't sure who is to thank for that; Tsubaki for healing him, or Madara for his obvious hand in browbeating his clan into such an agreement. 

It takes long days of negotiations, of making proposals and dismissing them, of making concessions and compromises. Tobirama isn't ever sure if he's gaining more ground for the Senju or losing it.

Mito does most of the talking. She's absurdly good at politics in a way that Tobirama and Hashirama, and all of the Senju for that matter, simply aren't. She's had the training for it, that much is clear. With the many clans and clanless shinobi that live on Uzushio, settling disputes is an invaluable skill. Mito steps cleanly into the committees she makes when she sees that the talks are boiling over into arguments and quells them with one sharp glance and a few careful words. 

He envies her, her people skills. Tobirama is a good teacher, a good student, a damn good commander, and an even better soldier. His back-up plans have back-up plans. But he wasn't raised to talk out solutions to problems that have plagued the clans for generations. It isn't that it's not in his nature, it's just that he doesn't know  _how_. And he would learn if he didn't have to learn around the people that seem content to give him ulcers just by looking at him.

"Do you always look this constipated when you have to help someone?"

Tobirama narrows his eyes. They've all been riding for days. Ironing out initial laws and procedures for their tentative village had taken less time than Tobirama had expected with the Uzushio shinobi there to round out the rough places. Mito had been right when she said that other shinobi were necessary to help the clans resolve their differences, to grow closer to one another. He doubts they would have been able to get this far if they hadn't had such a large third party to help smooth things out. 

"Not typically," Tobirama says, rubbing his thumb over his horse's reins. "Only when I have to help you."

Madara snorts. Hashirama is riding near them, Izuna not very much far behind. The two of them are absolutely necessary to make sure that Tobirama and Madara's constant quibbling doesn't actually end in bloodshed. Tsubaki hangs back, riding with the portrait artists. Mito is on Hashirama's other side, but there is space between them that Tobirama isn't sure what to make of. 

He knows that something between them has shifted and in a bad way. Tobirama knows his brother, knows Hashirama will tell him what's happened between them in his own time. There are few, if any secrets between them. 

"How typical," Madara sneers. "Even after how far we've come, you're still being difficult."

Tobirama doesn't take the bait. Madara is difficult to be around, even now. He isn't sure how to navigate this space, how to apologize without saying he's truly sorry for what he's done. 

But Madara has made himself invaluable. Whatever he's said or done to the Uchiha, it's pushed forward the peace talks faster than what Hashirama has said to the Senju. The Uchiha get along swimmingly with the Uzushio shinobi. Their religions are similar, and so are their tastes in obscenely spicy, salty food. 

Mito got along with Madara like a house on fire. Which was terrifying to say the least. 

It also meant that Tobirama was running out of excuses. He had hidden his attraction behind his antagonism, his antagonism behind his father's belief in the necessity of the war. And now that the war was over, there was only antagonism for the sake of antagonism. Rudeness for the sake of it. 

It was childish. 

Even Hashirama and Izuna were managing to get along better, leading an example that Madara and Tobirama would look foolish for not following. Especially now that they were getting their  _portraits_ painted. 

 There were few artists among the Senju, only a few more in the Uchiha. It was the Hyūga of all people, that managed to have a decent number of artists on hand to do such an undertaking. Mito had offered to send for some from Uzushio, but the Hyūga had insisted. They called it a gift, a first show of goodwill from their clan to the others that were joining the steadily forming village. 

Thus far the Hyūga had agreed to join them and the Sarutobi alongside them. The Shimura had been a shock to all of them, so shocking it had made Madara's jaw visibly drop when their missive came in the form of three kunoichi with 'x' shaped scars on their cheeks. 

The Yamanaka, Nara, and Akimichi had come to the fold shortly thereafter. The Inuzuka were the last holding out, and the Hatake alongside them. Tobirama didn't find himself overly concerned about acquiring them immediately. Nine clans had already agreed to join, and Mito was sure that her campaign of Uzushio riders into the little towns dotted over Fire Country would work in bringing the clanless and the artisans and farmers to the village. 

Others, she said, assuring them, would come once the village was founded. It would take several years, but at least nine clans guarding the same territory meant security. And security was attractive in a world that was still wild despite the ceasefire between the Uchiha and the Senju. 

There were talks of later portraits with each clan head and heir of the founding clans of the village, along with the civilian representatives, once they were decided upon. Tobirama thought all of it was frivolous, but he knew the value of record keeping. Even if picture painting wasn't exactly his favorite iteration of that principle, it was clearly important enough to everyone else to happen. 

"Here is a very nice spot," calls Hyūga Takashi, the artist responsible for Tobirama's current situation. 

He says it from behind them, so they have to tug on their reins to stop their horses. By the time they do, Takashi is already off his own horse, setting up shop with his assistant puttering around beside him. 

"First, we will have Tsubaki-san and Izuna-san," he says as his assistant unfolds a bench. "Then, Madara-sama, Hashirama-sama, then one with the two of them and Mito-sama. Afterwards, all four of the brothers, I think."

They all nod, nearly as one, and begin dismounting. They tie up their horses with enough leeway to let them graze. Izuna putters over to the artist, tugging absently at his hair. He pulled it back in a fiercer tail for the day, doing the opposite of what Tobirama had done, which was exactly nothing. 

"We'll only be doing outlines today, Izuna-san," Takashi says to ease his mind. "Any blemishes or stray hairs will be fixed before the portrait is completed."

Izuna nods, face reddening slightly at being called out so. Beside him, Tsubaki looks nonplussed. 

"Now you sit, Izuna-san," Takashi says as his assistant sets up his easel. "Tsubaki-san, stand just behind him, yes, like that. And put one hand on his shoulder, and this - yes, Takuma, take it to her - hold this bowl of herbs in your other hand."

Tsubaki blinks as Takuma hurries forward with a tiny decorative bowl, but she holds it in the flat of her palm as instructed. Takashi narrows his eyes, but he does little hemming and hawing. It isn't long before his pencil is at work, scraping out long lines, catching the curves of their two faces. 

Tobirama isn't exactly interested in watching the scene unfold. He has half a mind to speak to Hashirama about what is occurring between himself and Mito, but his brother has already disappeared. Tobirama can feel him; he's not very much far away, and he has his palm to a tree native of this area. 

The great valley where they plan to settle the village is only a little bit north from here, and is precisely why this area was chosen for the portraits to be sketched out. Hashirama had his work cut out for him. The Mokuton gave him the ability not only to grow forests, but to level and rearrange them as well. It would take time for him to understand how the trees of this area grew and died before he could begin his work. 

Mito is silent, preferring to watch over Takashi's shoulder as he begins his work than to seek out Tobirama. It only leaves him and Madara, and by the time Tobirama turns his head to make conversation, Madara's eyes are already on him. 

He jerks his head once to the left, and Tobirama follows him as he begins to walk. There's little danger of an ambush at this juncture, and if Madara has something to say to him, better in this relative quiet than in the open where they usually bicker. 

They don't walk for long, just long enough to be out of earshot. When they get that far, closer to the lip of the canyon but still in the shade of the trees, Madara stops. Something in him becomes abruptly softer, but no less on edge. 

Tired, Tobirama realizes. Madara looks tired. 

He rubs both his hands over his face, as if there is effort even in this small show of vulnerability. Tobirama knows what this is. It's akin to showing Tobirama his neck in the middle of battle. Isolating the two of them, then letting even a fraction of his guard down. 

It makes Tobirama seize up. 

"It's happening," Madara says. "They said we were idiots to believe in it, when we were kids. But it's happening."

Tobirama says nothing. There had been moments when he had doubted whether or not his brother's dream would make it into reality, in this lifetime or the next. But he had never said as much because Hashirama had never asked. 

Tobirama believed in his brother. That had always been enough for Hashirama. Or maybe he had just never asked for anything more. 

"If Izuna died... If he died, I don't know what I would have done," he continues. "The Uchiha - Losing the second son might have changed some of their minds. Your Uzushio shinobi were breaking our numbers with techniques we couldn't counter. Izuna dying would have changed a lot of minds about continuing the war."

"But me?" Madara says. He drops his hands and looks out beyond the treeline. Tobirama stays just behind him and a little to the left, quiet as the other speaks. "I probably would have lost myself."

Tobirama believes it when he says it. The Uchiha loved each other over all else. And Madara had seen as many of his brothers die as Tobirama and Hashirama had. One more, being alone, the last of your bloodline... Tobirama doesn't know what it would do to him. 

"There's a priest in the temple of Amaterasu." Madara shrugs his shoulder, changes his mind about something. "A new acolyte, really. A pain in the ass. But he has my sister's ear, so he must know what he's talking about."

A breeze breathes through the trees, rustling leaves down from the trees. Madara catches one that flitters too close to his face, holds it carefully between his fingers. 

"He thinks forgiveness is less about the person you're forgiving and more about giving yourself the chance to move past the wrong that's been done to you."

Madara snorts and rubs at the leaf between his fingers. 

"But he's named after a weasel," Madara says, grinning with all his teeth, "so what does he know?"

Madara chuckles and he lets the leaf go. It drops to the ground unceremoniously, and Madara watches it fall before he turns to look at Tobirama. He looks as tired as he sounds. 

"I am never not going to want to wring your neck for what you did to my brother."

Tobirama swallows, meets Madara's black eyes with his own red ones. He didn't expect anything less. 

"But if it weren't for your sister-in-law and her guard, Izuna would be dead." A muscle in Madara's jaw clenches and releases, but he doesn't drop the gaze. "Mito told me about your visit to Uzushio. How it cemented her marriage with Hashirama. The long and short of it, is that you killed my brother, but you also saved his life."

When Tobirama's eyes widen a fraction, Madara immediately snorts and waves his hand. 

"I'm not an idiot, Tobirama, I know you didn't do it on purpose," he says. "How could you have known that Mito would bring a healer like Tsubaki with her? But she did, and now we're here. And most of what's happened since is your fault."

Madara sighs. It's an unfamiliar sound, one Tobirama isn't used to hearing him make. Another show of weakness. Vulnerability. It's only a little bit terrifying. 

"This little acolyte of my sister's and your brother have something in common. They believe in the Will of Fire. How a wandering monk and your brother ended up believing in the same philosophy is beyond me. But they do."

Tobirama sucks in a breath. The Will of Fire. 

"Love is the key to peace," he says, and it's the first thing he's said in the entirety of this conversation. 

Madara nods stiffly and looks out at the valley. Tobirama steps forward until they are standing ride beside one another. 

"If we behave like a family, if we love each other like family, then we will survive." Madara gives another shrug. "It's a very Uchiha thing to believe. But love sours in us if we lose who we care for. And Hashirama... Hashirama is big hearted enough to be one of us. He's like Izuna that way."

He can feel Madara's gaze shift to him, can feel the air between them change a little bit as it does. 

"And you're just enough like me to be one of us, too," he says around a terrible smirk. "Too loyal. Too sharp. Too loving."

He doesn't have to say it for Tobirama to understand what he means. 

_'I will never forgive what you did. But I understand it more than you know. I would have done the same in a heartbeat.'_

Tobirama returns the smirk. 

"It's a good thing we have so much in common," he says, "now that we're allies."

Madara snorts at that, and in the moment, through the tension, Tobirama's lungs seize a little in his chest. There is a breeze, and the trees are whispering still, murmuring to Hashirama the pulse of the world, and Tobirama's senses are open and he can hear it all. 

He can hear Madara's chakra, thrumming in his veins, his sensor ability like a second sight. And Madara is sharp edges and friction, desperation gone soft in the face of one loss that would have been insurmountable if not for happenstance. 

Madara feels the way he's always felt, like a magnet, like a lodestone, like something that very keenly wants Tobirama to be next to it but repels it in the same instant. But he is here, trying,  _trying_ in a way that Tobirama did not think he was capable of. 

Hashirama had always insisted that Madara was a good man. Competitive, maybe. Stubborn. Strong willed and ruthless. Loyal to a fault, until death, and beyond.

"Rather like you," Hashirama would say, smiling as he did. 

And they are more alike than they are different. It finally seems reasonable to realize that now that they aren't trying to kill each other. 

The moment doesn't pass and neither does the tension. Tobirama is prone to denying himself and so he does even now. He is reminded of Ryo in Uzushio, little paradise that it was, and how willing he was to let him forget. How much he wanted Tobirama to leave, and to remember. 

"We have a location," Tobirama says, cutting through a silence that begins to feel heavy with something he should not name. "It ought to have a name."

Madara hums in agreement. 

"It's bad luck to name a thing before it's born," he says, and Tobirama rolls his eyes at the wives tale.

His mother had said such things to him when he was a child, but he had long since grown out of it. The Senju had ancestor worship, but his mother had something else. Something made of earth and snow, held separate. Delicate and secretive. Maybe that had been the remnants of Uzumaki Konohako in her blood, reminding her of spirit worship, of the gods that the Senju had never worshipped. Though distant cousins, maybe his mother had gotten more Uzumaki blood than she had gotten Senju.

"But," Madara continues. "I've been thinking. About the way you can see the valley through the trees, but the leaves hide everything else. Like they're protecting the valley from view."

Tobirama nods, and he can see it. The way the branches lower themselves, but are still a little see through. How the leaves seem to drape themselves like little fluttering curtains, obscuring the precious valley below. 

"I was thinking 'Konohagakure'," Madara murmurs. "For the village hidden in the leaves."

Tobirama turns his head, just to look at Madara once the words have left his mouth. Madara looks back, eyebrow arched. 

"What?" he asks, pleasant demeanor threatening to curve into a sneer. It's a defense mechanism, Tobirama realizes that now. Something to cover up his insecurity. And why shouldn't he have one, after he's shown so much of himself to Tobirama, who only minutes ago was nearly his brother's killer? "You don't like it?"

"No," Tobirama says, shaking his head. "Konohako was the name of the woman whose blood gave rise to the Mokuton. She was one of my foremothers."

The rising sneer on Madara's face leaves almost instantaneously. His mouth settles into something contemplative, and Tobirama watches it as it does. For a moment, he doesn't deny himself. If Madara notices, he makes no mention of it. 

"That seems auspicious," Madara says, leaning a bit into Tobirama's space as he does it. "If you're superstitious, that is."

Tobirama nods. 

"Lucky guess." 

Madara hums and looks through the leaves at the place where the world is already beginning to change. Tobirama looks through the leaves, and when they fail to hold his attention, he looks at Madara.

"If you're superstitious," he says, "that is."

Madara chuckles at him, and they stand there until Takashi calls them for their sketches.  

* * *

They do not speak. Not because they do not want to, but because they shouldn't. Sakura stays away. She doesn't know if she's making a mistake or not by doing it. She stays away from Mito's chambers for days, wordlessly switching shifts with the other Handmaidens so that she doesn't have to play decoy in Mito's bed. Rin stares at her coolly, but Utano is warmer. Momo is quiet and Usagi watches like a hawk. Kikue tells her to do her best. 

Sakura does her best.

She feels foolish for letting it go as far as it had. For letting Mito behave rashly. She should have known better. She should have known  _better_. But she hadn't. Or maybe she hadn't wanted to. 

Sakura wonders why it was so easy for her to take to Tenten when Ino died. It hadn't felt like a betrayal then. It had felt like survival. Their affair had been born of desperation, of necessity in those trying times. Everyone did it when they lost who they loved; paired off, then died again like flies. 

But Mito is different. She isn't like Tenten, wild eyed and miserable when Temari's life was sucked out of her. It isn't a simple healing of a stab wound beneath Tenten's breast turning into a needy mouth on hers, and hands and moans and days and weeks later. A mutual need. An itch that needed to be scratched. Tenten said Temari's name. Sakura whispered Ino's. Mutual aid in those trying times. 

Mito doesn't see anyone other than Tsubaki, and even that is a tenuous thing to say at best. Mito doesn't see anyone other than Sakura. 

And that is painful. Because Sakura got sloppy. She didn't do all she should have. She should have known better. Should have crafted a persona, should have called Naruto and Sasuke by different names, should have been more vague in some places, more specific in others. 

She shouldn't have taught Mito the Byakugō. She shouldn't have told her stories on her palm. Shouldn't have followed her back to the Uzumaki compound, should not have told her that she had been married. Should not have told her what she had lost. 

But Sakura had. Sakura  _had_. Her heart had always gotten her into trouble, whether it was on Sasuke's account or on Naruto's. And now she had again. She was a fool for it. 

It was easy to fuck when Ino had died. Sex was simple. Primal, instinctual. Loving was different. It was why she hadn't allowed herself to think any woman beautiful since Ino died, becuase if Ino was dead, then there were no beautiful women. If Ino was dead, then there were no women worth loving, because when Ino died, she took all of them with her. 

Except one. One out of time. One impossible,  _impossible_ girl that shouldn't have, and yet was. 

It hits her at once. The weight of it. The pressure, the softness, the way it suffocates. It's different than it was with Ino. With Ino, she had always known. Even when they were girls, even when they fought over Sasuke. Going back to Ino was like going back home. 

Mito was an island at sea. Lost, out in the middle distance. Almost a mirage, but sturdy enough to be real. Impossible.  _Impossible_. And then your feet touched sand and your lips met hers and suddenly, she was real.  

She doesn't sob when it comes to her. She is on Shimura land, standing just behind Mito. Touka is on her other side, and they flank the impossible girl, the woman, the whirlwind as she looks into the face of Shimura Isshin and tells him why he should put his people in her hands. 

Her heart crawls into her throat and she nearly spits it out on Mito's shoulder, but she can't. She holds it in, swallows around her arteries, and forces it to settle down in her chest. 

She keeps it there when they travel to the Nara, to the Akimichi, and the Yamanaka. Holds it down under her palm and folded beneath the thick fabric of her kimono, hidden again still under her haori when they meet with the clanless shinobi that the Uzushio riders bring back with them from their journeys far to the borders of Fire Country. 

Sakura holds it in the palm of her hand. Makes a fist around it. That was what her shishou had taught her. To put everything she cared about, valued, loved,  _needed_ into her fist, and then to fight for it. 

But Sakura is selfish. And she does not want to fight. She just  _wants_. 

Ino had believed in love. Ino had been jealous. Selfish as Sakura and sometimes, twice or three times as mean. But Ino was dead and she hadn't been born yet. And Sakura would never meet her again in this lifetime. 

And if Ino could forgive her Tenten, could she forgive Sakura Mito as well?

She doesn't know. She doesn't know and she'll never find out. Maybe one day, in the Pure Land if they both get there, Ino will forgive her. If she's waiting in limbo, watching over her right now, maybe Sakura is already being forgiven.

* * *

There is no privacy on the road. Even when they are working for peace with the other clans, smoothing new disputes and trying to settle old ones, there is little time for solitude. 

Sakura sees the way Hashirama strays from Mito's side. When they must be beside each other, they are beside each other. When they do not have to be, they part. Sakura knows that she has something to do with that, that this situation is her fault. But the irrational part of her, the part of her that sounds suspiciously like Inner Sakura preens. 

But now is not the right time, so Sakura waits. She's aware that when she is also sent out with Mito, there is always a third, and the third is usually Touka. No Handmaiden to excuse their behavior, but a Senju woman who will report back to Hashirama. Sakura is surprised at the chaperoning, but doesn't take offense. 

It just prepares her to be more careful. Though she is selfish, Sakura is patient. Learned patience waiting for Sasuke, praying for Naruto. Surviving her shishou. She can wait. 

Opportunity strikes in the form of restlessness. Mito takes her time falling asleep one night in the compound, and Sakura sees her rise, snake her way out of bed without disrupting Rin sleeping beside her and head outside. 

The other Handmaidens hold their positions in the walls. Sakura is on external patrol tonight, and so is Momo. But Momo is with Touka in a different part of the main house, and Sakura is the only person to see Mito leave. 

She tails her because it is her duty, and when Mito makes a sharp turn into a grove of flowering trees, Sakura follows her. At night, under the light of the moon, the garden is more mysterious than it is welcoming. Eerie and quiet. 

Sakura doesn't bother disguising her footsteps. She tails Mito loudly enough that the woman can hear her. Sakura waits because she is patient. She follows because it is second nature. 

Mito leads her through the winding grove, larger on the inside than it looks like at first glance. The flowers cast shadows that dapple over Mito's sleeping yukata, that make her deep red hair look closer to black. When Mito stops, Sakura does as well. She turns around and Sakura almost wants to laugh. 

At Mito's hip is a clump of high reaching cosmos flowers. 

"I was born in a valley like the one where the village will be."

The truth. The thing she wasn't supposed to tell, but did anyway. 

"My parents names were Kizashi and Mebuki."

Mito's face gives nothing away, the unhappy tilt to her mouth so minute that Sakura has to squint to see it. But she sees it. 

"I had a teacher named Kakashi. And another named Tsunade, like the princess I told you about."

She takes a step forward, each admission another wall down. Another defense thrown out the window in the face of what's in front of her. 

Sakura's mission was complete. She had done what no one expected her to be able to do. Naruto would have done it in half the time. Sasuke would have done it with twice the casualties. But they didn't. Sakura did it. 

She saved Izuna. She taught Tobirama. She killed Black Zetsu and every White Zetsu that had ever crawled the planet. Her work was over. But she didn't want to die. Not right now, at least. She only wanted to rest. 

"I thought I was in love with Sasuke when I was younger," she says, smilingly, "but it was really Ino. It was always Ino."

There's a flicker of recognition in Mito's eyes. But no, that was impossible. There was no way Tsubaki had once been married to a Yamanaka. It was just a name. A strange one like the strange names of all the people she had known. 

But it was the truth. And it was a dangerous thing. 

"She was my wife," Sakura says, the tears tugging at the corners of her eyes. "Her name was Ino, and I loved her the moment I saw her until the moment she breathed her last."

"Tsubaki."

Mito's voice is hard. Harder than Sakura expects it to be. She stands in the shadow of the leaves, the light of the moon not touching her. Sakura feels exposed with the sky over her head. 

"Enough," she says, and Sakura can hear the fine, fine tremor in Mito's voice. "You need to rest."

"When Ino died, I thought love died with her."

Mito's eyes flash but Sakura can't tell what with. Her heart is in her throat again, threatening to force its way out, but this time it doesn't have to. This time, Sakura lets it breathe. 

"I was wrong."

Mito is stiff as a corpse. Sakura holds out a hand, an offering, an opportunity. 

"Mito," she says, and it comes out a little like a sob. " _Mito_. I'm sorry."

 Mito does nothing. She is still, her eyes betraying nothing. Sakura's heart falls out of her mouth and beats on the ground between them, loud in the words she has said and in the thousands that are still tied up in her throat. 

"I am married."

Mito says it through gritted teeth. Sakura doesn't laugh even though she wants to. 

"I know."

Mito narrows her eyes, her pretty hands balled up into fists. 

"I am not a replacement."

A crack in her resolve. Small enough to let a little moonlight through. Sakura takes a step forward. 

"You aren't," Sakura agrees. "You're you."

"I can't."

When she says it, Sakura believes it. But it doesn't stop her holding her hand out, and it doesn't stop her taking another step forward. 

"Then don't."

The cracks widen into fissures in the silence. 

"Don't," she says again. It's a way out. One Mito should take. 

But they would not have gotten this far if they had done what they ought to have. 

Mito takes one step, then another, then she is close enough for Sakura to take her by the wrist and pull her into the moonlight. She holds Mito there, her hands light at Mito's waist, and she doesn't pull any further. She watches the fissures in her get larger, watches Mito change her mind. And this time, when they kiss, there is no need, no fear, no desperation. 

This time, it is chaste. Careful. There is no fear of being swept away, not by anything. This time, Sakura tastes the truth.

* * *

 

She requests the audience with him. It surprises Hashirama. She does it early in the morning, so early that everyone on the compound except for he and Tobirama are asleep. 

She requests that Tobirama not be admitted. 

Hashirama allows it. He doesn't know what compels him to do so. He should have known that Nobi Tsubaki would be the one. A castaway that Mito had been distraught to lose, now come home to end the war by saving a life she had no business saving. She had gone from a nobody to being included in the planning for Konohagakure. A strange girl, a possible lost child of the Senju, now being written about in their histories. 

Hashirama had wanted to offer her Tobirama's hand. That much would have been recompense for their clan losing her in the first place. When he spoke about her in his letters from Uzushio, Tobirama seemed to get along with her quite well. And he didn't trust her, which made the match all the better. He could keep an eye on her if they slept in the same house. 

That thought was long out of the window. Madara had already mentioned to him that the Uchiha were planning on matching her up with Izuna. A marriage between the Senju and the Uchiha was a good idea all things considered, even if not everyone knew Tsubaki was a Senju by birth. 

Now here she is, sitting before him. Her eyes are low, though if she does it out of respect or because the early morning light is in her eyes, Hashirama cannot tell. 

"Are you going to speak on her behalf?" he asks. 

Tsubaki shakes her head. 

"She can do that for herself," she replies. "I can only speak for myself."

Hashirama doesn't want to look at her. This woman who was his responsibility before she proceeded to change the world, and who is still his responsibility now that she is upending his. 

Hashirama had not expected Mito to love him. He had hoped that perhaps, they could learn to love one another. She was a tempering force, he could tell that from the first moment he met her. A sharp wind to cut a day's heat in half. 

Still. Part of him, most of him had believed her when she came to him that first time. When she said she would miss him, that she wanted to be with him. 

Hashirama is many things. Big hearted, loving, perhaps too trusting, too eager, too excited. There are a litany of things that make him less like a Senju and more like the Uzushio cousins that now live in the compound. He likes to think himself a good judge of character. 

And what stings about this, is that he saw this coming. 

Mito had never been with a man before him. That much had been clear from her preparation, from the vial, from the stiff column of her back as he held onto her that first time. That stiffness never left her, even after Hashirama came back. Every time they lay together, part of her had seemed far away. 

Hashirama had chalked it up to her virginity or to a possible preference for women. Either seemed reasonable. Momo was easy enough with her affections towards Touka that Hashirama could tell that such relationships were no issue on Uzushio. So Mito either preferred women, or she was awkward with men. 

He realizes now that he should have stopped her, each and every time she had come to him. But they had been friends, hadn't they, before she had started doing that? He would have thought that she would say something to him. If she preferred women, they could have figured something out without making her resort to such means to secure the future of both of her clans. 

Without making her hurt them both in her pursuit of her duty.

"I won't presume to know how you feel about the matter," Tsubaki says, "but I want to assure you that I am not a threat to your marriage."

Hashirama wants to huff at that, but he doesn't. Keeps himself still. Allows Tsubaki to say her piece. That is more than his father would have done. If Hashirama's mother had taken a lover, Butsuma would have killed the man and beaten his wife. 

But Hashirama is not his father. 

"Mito follows the laws of Uzushio, but you have no reason to. If we were on the island, I would make a formal request to - to court her. As it is, it seems redundant and insulting to ask for your blessing."

He agrees wholeheartedly. But Hashirama is not made of stone. He knows that though he has gotten Mito to warm up to him, though they are friends, that she never would have loved him with her whole heart. She would have tried, would have worked for it to the best of her ability, because that was what was being asked of her. From the Uzumaki and the Senju both. 

"I love her," Tsubaki says. "And I do not plan on leaving her side unless she demands it of me."

Hashirama arches an eyebrow. Not unless  _he_ demands it of her, but unless Mito did. He already knew why the elders were wary of Uzushio shinobi and their loyalty to their own old ways, but now he is seeing it more clearly firsthand. 

Hashirama has always praised difference. Has always nurtured odd talents, has always wondered about different ways of thinking. It was what led him to read the works of the dead poets and philosophers, made him make friends with a strange boy who had a head full of spiky black hair. Made him skip stones with that boy by the river. 

Differences, understanding and respecting them, sharing them; these made people stronger. But now, he wishes he had more authority to throw around. The Uzushio shinobi would leave in a heartbeat if he tried to exert it. He knows that. Mito had assured all of them of that much when she did not take the Senju name upon marriage. 

His hands are tied, denying him his childish desire to lash out. It's a good thing.

"The Uchiha are planning to propose their secondborn son to you."

It makes Tsubaki's eyes widen a fraction. Hashirama had seen Takashi's sketches of the portrait that he had done of the two of them. They made an attractive pair, that much was true. 

"Your clan head is in Uzushio, so I do not know if Minako-san will be able to broker a decent contract for you. That responsibility will likely fall to Mito."

He sees the gears begin to turn in Tsubaki's head, the subtle shift of worry in her eyes. Hashirama wonders if this is what he looked like when Minako first proposed Mito's hand to him, or what Mito looked like when he sent back his approval. 

"The Uchiha treat their women similarly to how Uzushio treats theirs," Hashirama continues. "I'm sure you will be very happy there, should you choose to accept the contract."

They both know it would be foolish of her not to. An insult. A black stain on her people, on Uzushio if she refused to marry a man of such prestige to be another woman's lover.

"They will treat you well," Hashirama says. "You have similar gods. And Izuna is a good man." 

Tsubaki nods, and the movement is jagged. Sharp. She is still several sentences behind, still processing information. 

"And," he says, "if Izuna does not force you to follow the ways of the Uchiha, then you would be free to follow those of Uzushio."

Her gaze snaps up to him, her one green eye terribly bright in the sunlight. Hashirama can hear a rooster screech his morning cry. Its noise is too shrill, too loud for this moment. 

"My brother tells me that there is a ripple in Mito's chakra," Hashirama explains. "Twins, he suspects. If he is to be believed, then Mito will have fulfilled her obligations, and I will require nothing more from her."

Hashirama can find someone else to fill his bed. He will not force Mito. He is not that kind of person; he never has been. Mito had been his wife first, and his friend second. She would always be his wife, but her friendship, that would take time to get back. He had lost pieces of it when he told her to leave him. But he did want it back. 

She was a good woman. Invaluable. A tempering force and a damned smart one, too. He couldn't risk losing her, not when so much of the dream he had held in his mind's eye had only begun to see fruition under her tender hands. 

Hashirama never had Mito's heart. Not in the way he would have hoped to, and even then, his hopes had been small. And now, he did not want to lose her as an ally. He did not want to lose her as a cousin. He did not want to lose her as his friend. Those things were more important. He wasn't any less to her because she did not want him in that way. They could love each other in their own way, while Tsubaki and Mito loved each other in theirs. 

Still. It is not so easy to say. 

"Our marriage will not be a fool's marriage," Hashirama says, and there's a small warning in his voice. "But I have not forced Mito to follow all of the laws of the Senju, because she is not a Senju. When the elders die, there will be no one to ask me to do so. Maybe then, you could come to me with your request."

It meant time. Time and waiting in the shadows. Hiding. But Tsubaki's green eye glitters with the hunger of a challenge just bitten into, and Hashirama wonders whether or not he will wake up in the morning with one or two less great-uncles. 

Tsubaki bows low, so low her pink hair falls around her face when she presses it to the floor. 

"Thank you, Hashirama-sama," she says. And he can hear from the way the words settle in her throat that she means it. "Thank you."

He wonders what she's thanking him for. His eventual blessing to court Mito, or for being allowed to love her with his blessing, even in silence, now. 

Hashirama smiles at her as she rises and leaves. When she is gone, he lets the expression fall from his face. Concessions. He was learning from Mito, wasn't he? Little concessions, little ones. A heart was a terrible thing to break, and a difficult thing to repair. With things the way they stood now, Hashirama couldn't afford the time to do either. 

And if Mito got her loving-wife in the end, maybe he could find a loving-wife, or a loving-husband. Someone with whom he could give what Mito should not have had to take. They had been unwilling burdens on one another. Now here was a chance to free them both. 

Hashirama looks toward the dawn. There is work to do, and no time for moping.

* * *

She wakes up to Tsubaki stepping quietly into her chambers. Rin is long gone; they rotate when the sun rises, and she told them Tsubaki would come to her bed to finish the evening. 

And Tsubaki does. 

Mito rises on her elbow, the morning light making her blink slowly. Tsubaki crosses the room, quiet as she crossed the space between them the night before, and she settles down on the bed roll beside Mito.

Mito reaches out, hesitant for a moment, but she presses her palm lightly against Tsubaki's cheek. She is new to this, to all of this, but Tsubaki turns her face into the touch, and presses a kiss against the highest point of Mito's wrist. 

"Is it okay?" she asks, voice lighter than the sun streaming into their room. "Is he okay? Are we - Can we?" 

Tsubaki nods slowly, then leans in forward, and presses their foreheads together. She winds her hand up until it twists in Mito's red hair. She curls it around her fingers, and presses the red strands to her lips, a slow smile coming onto her face. 

"We can," Tsubaki whispers, and the smile that tip-toes onto Mito's face is brilliant as the light outside. "We are."

 


	17. Chapter 17

He wakes up. He isn't supposed to wake up. He is supposed to find silence. Then, perhaps light. Afterward, home. He had prayed to the goddess to send him home. To where his mother was waiting, and his father, stern faced but proud nevertheless. To Itachi, smiling in that quiet way of his. To Naruto. 

The goddess had made sure he hadn't been in pain. He had thought - He had thought that meant she would send him home, to where the love was. He had made her proud, hadn't he? He had been her hands on this earth. Had used her holy fire to purge evil from the planet. Why would she send him here? To darkness, interrupted by a campfire?

He lifts a hand above his face, and to be sure, his fingers are all still attached. But there is no ache, no pain, no long since leftover muscle stiffness that came with running and fighting and running again, through his time, and then through the one that was not his. 

Limbo. He grinds his teeth. No pain, no, but an eternal wait. What had his soul stopped him here for? Why hadn't he passed on to the other side, where his home was surely waiting? He had nothing here, not like Sakura. He had not known a Shisui like Itachi had, no Sakumo like Kakashi had. So why - ?

"You're awake." 

If he could grind his own teeth to dust, Sasuke is sure he would in this moment. 

The Sage of the Six Paths has a voice made of time itself, and is twice as weary, and as ragged. There is nothing comforting in it for Sasuke. It is the low rumble of a man who has failed several times before, and is resigned to fail again. He sounds like Kakashi. 

"Why?" Sasuke rasps. 

He does not ask all that he wants to. Not why he is here or why it is him and not Naruto, why it is him and not Itachi, or Shisui, or any of the countless others that could have solved these problems. He does not ask why the Sage does not simply use himself to change the world he has so awkwardly tried to protect. 

The Sage offers him no platitudes, and for that at least, Sasuke can find it in him to be grateful. 

"She burned me," he says. "Scoured me from living. I have no body to go back to."

The Sage chuckles, and Sasuke knows it is foolish to say. This man, this  _being_ gave him the power to awaken his Rinnegan. What is a physical form to the firstborn son of chakra itself?

"I have no chakra," Sasuke says, screwing his eyes shut. He feels like a child. He does not want what the Sage is attempting to give him, but he knows that he does not have a choice in the matter. Naruto hadn't given Sakura an option. He had only sent her along. At least the Sage seemed keen on giving him information.

"My chakra left my body," he presses. "No living thing can exist without it. It belongs wholly to Madara. If I go back, one of us would die."

He does not want to look at the Sage, but Sasuke can hear the humor in his voice. 

"My brother and I were of no father sired. My sons were of no woman born," he says. "Like your goddess and her husband's sword, I chewed the rings of my shakujō to form bodies for my children. I formed them in my hands, and with mud and water, fire and lightning. I breathed life into them, and gave them my chakra." 

The explanation is long for Sasuke's tastes. He does not open his eyes, even though the possibilities that the Sage is presenting in front of him are endless. Each of them makes his stomach drop lower and lower still in the cavern of his body. 

"I gave you chakra enough to give you that eye, boy," the Sage says. "I could give you enough to give you life again, too." 

Sasuke swallows thickly. Behind the shutter of his closed eyes, he can see Naruto as he was the last time they were both alive. Battered. Exhausted. Dying, but too stubborn to let go until he was  _sure_. 

"Bring someone else back," Sasuke spits. 

The Sage hums at that, really hums as if he's thinking it over. Sasuke bites the inside of his cheek so hard, the skin breaks. 

"Naruto was the last of you, in your time."

There was no one left. No one with even a shred of a body, no one left with a blood-and-chakra connection back to the Sage and his mother. 

"Have one of your beasts do your dirty work."

"Who will listen to them?"

Sasuke bares his teeth in a snarl, more snake-like than he ever thought of himself. 

"Give  _them_ new bodies. Let me die."

The Sage sighs. Probably does something inane like stroke his beard while he thinks on Sasuke's mulishness. 

"They warned me you would be stubborn," he muses. "I knew you would be as bad as my Indra was. But both of them warned me, you would be much worse."

He sits up faster than he can stop himself. He has always been this impulsive. He reaches for his chakra and realizes that he has none, but he vaults himself forward. 

Those two. When it came to those two, he has always been rash. Has always moved before he could think about whether or not he should, or what he stood to lose if he made a false step. He is no different in death than he was when he was a child. 

He grabs the Sage by the throat of his garment, dragging him in close so he can slam his other fist into the man's smug, wizened face. 

The Sage only looks at him, his terrible and familiar eyes awful and calm. He doesn't block Sasuke's strike. He doesn't need to. Sasuke never hits him. His fist hangs in the air, perilous and stiff, trembling with the exertion it takes to keep him from decking the grandfather of ninjutsu in the fucking face. 

"You don't know  _anything_ about me," Sasuke spits. "Or  _anything_ about them."

The Sages eyes change then. They go from soft to searching, looking for something inside of Sasuke. He feels his soul laid bare. He twitches. No one should look at him like that. No one except the goddess, whose eye is warm and kind and loving, who has seen his faults before he knew them, who has known and loved him before he knew his own name. 

"Reincarnation is a funny thing," the Sage says. 

He reaches up, lays a gentle hand on top of Sasuke's wrist where he holds the Sage by his clothes. 

"You had his chakra, but so did the world. All chakra flows through all things and returns in different forms. In rivers, trees, mountains. And in people. But the spirit of a person? That only occurs once."

The Sage shakes his head. Sasuke's grip slackens. 

"You are not my son, no more than Naruto was. No more than Hashirama or Madara are though all of your chakra comes from mine, and so from my mother's," he says. "You are only Uchiha Sasuke, and though there is pain to what I burden you with, you are who I have chosen."

Uchiha Sasuke. A secondborn son born out of time, sent back to save all lives. The last and first of his kind. The only Rinnegan that currently exists, and hopefully, the last for as long as this world shall live. 

"When you are finished, you will be able to return to him."

His eyes narrow, but the Sage is only smiling. He looks like Iruka-sensei in this moment, like a teacher imparting a simple lesson on a student too stubborn to understand. 

"The both of you will be able to, that much I promise. You and the girl, who has already changed so much. It is the least that I can do for you, the children who will finish the work that I foolishly left undone."

Home. Like a promise, dangling in front of his face. What will the Sage do if he refuses? Leave him here in Limbo? Let him fester and rot in this place with no light except for a fire, where his goddess cannot reach him? And where will Sakura go?

"Only you two know what is at stake if you fail, and that is why I believe you will not."

Sasuke drops the Sage's garments, ignores the way they are not even wrinkled from his fist in them. He lets his fists hang loosely at his sides. He hates Ōtsutsuki Hagoromo. He will never hate anyone else more. 

But there was work left undone, work that Sakura could not do. If the Gedō Mazō still stood, and Black Zetsu's tablets remained unaltered and undestroyed, there was still a chance. Hamura was doing his job on the moon while Hagoromo failed on earth. 

Sakura could not summon the statue. Not with her blood. But Sasuke could. And he could not allow another Uchiha to do it, not while the war was still on. That way led a history that Sasuke and his generation had suffered from. It was not a history worth repeating. It has to be him. It has to be the two of them, together.

He can feel his shoulders slump, the truth of the matter settling on him like a mantle he does not want to wear. He hears the Sage release a slow breath, and then feels the space around him grow dense. 

When the Sage touches him, it is with both hands. His one thumb presses to Sasuke's head, on his crown. His other thumb settles at his sternum, under which Sasuke's heart does not beat harder or louder or longer. 

He leaves his eyes open as the Sage reforms him. Something like nectarine pools in the back of his throat, slides down, makes a home in his chest, in his bell, and expands, reaches outward, filling him. It travels through his veins, coalesces at his tenketsu points and travels back again. 

Then there is a forehead on his, and a hand curving gently around the back of his head. The gesture is painfully intimate, and Sasuke shudders around the sob that tries to claw its way out of his mouth. He opens his eyes expecting to see his brother, there to make him another promise, to give him another sweet word, something to moor him in the coming days. 

Instead, there is a soft mouth on his, one he would know in any time, in any nation. And when his eyes finally open, there is Naruto, a beacon of light, his blue eyes shining like the early morning. He smiles.

 _"I told him you'd do it,"_ he says, cheeky, mouth quirked up, like he has known every choice Sasuke has ever made and will ever make. Like he knows Sasuke the same way he knows himself.  _"Warned him you'd be a stubborn bastard about it. But I knew you'd cave._ " 

And deep inside of him, Sasuke knows what change the Sage has wreaked. He has changed his affinity, pulled it away from the katon that Sasuke has known from birth. Away from lightning that made itself at home inside of him. 

The Uchiha tended fires. Saw to it that they grew, that they stayed in safe sizes. Fed them. Fire was in their blood. But fūton? Wind? 

Sasuke was no longer a fire. He was what fed them. What turned them from sparks into roaring flames. He was the wind the uchiwa made. He would be what saved his clan before it devoured itself. 

Naruto leans back and pitches forward, knocking their heads together. It makes Sasuke drop his jaw, the way Naruto shuts his eyes and beams, impossibly wide. 

 _"I knew you'd get it_ ," Naruto says. 

Both of Naruto's hands are on his face now, cradling it, thumbs running over the skin of Sasuke's cheeks. They've gotten fatter, rounder with the Sage's help. His spirit was his own, but his body, this new chakra, this new affinity, they were the work of Hagoromo. He was changing, and changing still. 

_"You'll find me again."_

Sasuke reaches up with hesitant hands, and when he touches Naruto, his forearms are warm and solid beneath his grasp. Sasuke squeezes. There's such a small of give, enough that tells Sasuke if he holds on too tight, Naruto will burst in front of him. 

 _"I've seen it,"_ Naruto whispers.  _"He showed me. We’ll be kids again. I'll have long hair, and yours will still look like a duck's ass."_

It drags a laugh out of him, and Naruto is laughing, too. It's infectious, pouring out of one mouth and into the other, circling around them and Sasuke slowly begins to fade from this world and back into the next. 

 _"You'll find me in Uzushio,_ " Naruto says.  _"Your first mission outside of the village as a genin. You and Sakura-chan, you’ll go to Whirlpool instead of Wave. We won't know why, we won't remember. But I'll be waiting for you. And you'll find me."_

"Shut up, Naruto," Sasuke mutters. 

But he smiles, and Naruto's thumb strokes his cheekbone. They breathe the same air, and Sasuke can feel the way Naruto knows fūton, the way the wind around them in this odd place buffets against them. Cool breezes, stillness before a gale, before a storm. It dances in Naruto's hair, lifts Sasuke's to join his. 

Naruto has two arms here, and he uses them to hold Sasuke, not even enough space for a little wind between them. He's warm, though Sasuke can't hold onto him too tight. 

'Your light belongs with mine.' And 'our lights were born together'. That was part of the vows said under Amaterasu's light, for weddings, for births, for lifelong dedications to the temple. His mother had said them to his father, smilingly, lovingly.

All fires came from Amaterasu. Some flames were born closer to one another, others farther apart. And there was a light inside of every living thing, connecting them, drawing them together, burning at the same heat, at the same height. Meant to find each other over and over again, to burn higher until together, they reached Amaterasu and returned to the blaze in which they were born.

Light always came back to light. No matter how much darkness separated them, fires would cross nations to find each other. Even though Amaterasu split from Tsukuyomi, the sun and moon still chased each other across the sky. It was said that when the world was ready, they would join together in the sky, ushering in a new era of peace for the world, when their love finally caught up with one another's. 

Sasuke is holding the sun in his hands, and even though he will let go, he has a promise of the future. In that world, his flame will join with Naruto's, and together, they will leap towards the goddess. He'll be able to say the words out loud. Maybe one of his aunts will officiate. Kirin-baa-chan would probably cry the whole way through the ceremony. Akane-baa-chan would stay stiff lipped, but she'd be misty eyed. 

His mother would do it. Or, if things went differently, if they worked out, it could be Itachi. And wasn't that a world worth looking forward to? Maybe not now, but eventually. When his work was over, he could die in this time and when he rose again, there would be a new life to look forward to. A Naruto to cross the world to find again.

Sasuke leans in, and he doesn't say the words perfectly because they're meant for marriage. But this is a vow. The wind picks up around them as he says it, and Sasuke wants to swim forever in the blue of Naruto's eyes. 

"My light is yours." 

They kiss, easy and slow as falling asleep. And on the other side, Sasuke wakes up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hyper short chapter, but it mirrors chapter one entirely on purpose. 
> 
> dealing with a litany of family health issues rn so updates are going to be difficult; i have grad school applications starting in september so that'll keep me off as well. hope this is enough of a cliffhanger to shock and awe you into waiting for more. 
> 
> chapter count has increased to accommodate sasuke's return. 20 should be the final cap for this fic. thank y'all for your patience!
> 
> 8.3.18. - did some slight revisions to make it clearer that Sasuke is the only person coming back to the Warring States timeline. the tags didn’t change, my friends, ie, Naruto is not making a larger appearance in this fic. He’s is still dead, but Sasuke is going back again. they’ll find each other again eventually, but not now.


	18. Chapter 18

He claws his way out of the grave Sakura made for him, pushing upward until he sprouts, a thing born again. He breathes, sucks in air, fills his lungs. Feels Naruto's mouth still on his, the whisper of nectarine in the back of his throat. 

He's alive, and he's annoyed about it. But there isn't time. The world is thrumming in a strange new way around him, and within him. His tenketsu are shut. No dilation. Nothing is dragging his chakra out of his body faster than he can replenish it. 

And the fūton affinity. Naruto's affinity. Sasuke can feel it. Katon and raiton are still there somewhere, deep in his bones. But wind.  _Wind_. It's singing to him in a way it never had before. When he sucks in the air above his grave, it buoys him. Reminds him of what is still waiting for him on the other side of this life. 

He drags himself out of his grave, choking on dirt and fresh air until he can sit upright. He wonders how much of his body was actually left for the burial. He's grateful Sakura didn't dump his ashes into a river, or throw them to the wind. It would've been much harder for this strange new body to coalesce on the ocean floor, or off the edge of a cliff. 

He stares at his swords, where they are standing in the earth and chances a smile at them. Sakura was too sentimental for his own good. He didn't need a grave marker. He would've been fine anonymously rotting. But she wouldn't have been fine with it. In any case, he's grateful. He needs his weapons. 

Sasuke staggers to them, his feet feeling heavy. All of him feels oddly heavy and foreign. He supposes that shouldn't be too surprising. He's never died, then returned before. This is probably a byproduct. He makes a note to ask Itachi about it the next time he dies, if he goes to the Pure Land instead of directly into his new promised life. And wouldn't that be a conversation?

Tsurugi and Murakumo feel like home in his hands. He settles them at his hip, eyes narrowed at the blades. He doesn't know how long he's been gone. His weapons show little sign of weather damage, so either Sakura's been coming to tend them and keep them sharp, or it hasn't been more than a week since he died. 

Sasuke wishes, sincerely, that he had time to deal with that headfuck. He really does. But he's abruptly aware of a presence at his back. Not very close, but close enough. Still the way only shinobi are. He had heard a familiar flick, the sound an arrow makes as it's notched. It was a familiar sound. He had been trained to be just as quiet, and to listen for that same silence.

He turns slowly, but doesn't take his hand off Tsurugi. When he's fully turned around, he's met with the sight of a young woman, no older than maybe sixteen. She's dressed as a shrine maiden with soft curly hair swept severely out of her face. An oddly familiar face, if only because Sasuke has seen it. He knows it. 

This is his great-great-great grandmother. Uchiha Nadeshiko. Last born daughter of Uchiha Tajima. He knows her face from the clan head portraits that his mother maintained dutifully in their family shrine, from the way her nose sits on her face, damningly similar to Itachi's. 

Another headfuck Sasuke doesn't really have time to think about. 

"State your business," she says, voice steely. "I am not as kind as my kinsmen, and will not give you a chance to run if you seek to do us harm."

He says nothing. Her eyes narrow. Nadeshiko hadn't had the Sharingan, though her descendants had. It was one of the reasons why she was relegated to the shrine, in addition to her bastard status. 

She could shoot at him, but Sasuke could deflect. He could beat her in a fight, if he wanted to. If he needed to. But he doesn't. He doesn't want to scare this woman, who his mother spoke so fondly of. The Uzumaki were notoriously long lived, but the Uchiha were not. Nadeshiko's long life had been a benefit to Mikoto, who loved her great-great-grandmother so ferociously that Sasuke and Itachi had learned that same affection from her. 

Besides. It doesn't help how much she looks like his mother. How much his brother resembles her. Sasuke wonders how much of his own face is in this woman's, she who may still become the head of the Uchiha should Izuna die and Madara defect. 

"Did you see me crawl out of the earth?" 

"Like a roach," Nadeshiko says, lip curled. 

"Like a growing thing," Sasuke counters, "vying for the Sun."

Her lips part, then shut. She doesn't lower her bow. 

"The Heavenly Mother's order does not know those outside of the Uchiha."

"I am not outside of the Uchiha."

It's a dangerous way to hedge his bets. The burden of the future should only lay heavy on the shoulders of those who have seen it. He and Sakura should be all that's left of the world Kaguya destroyed, and with them should die all information on it. 

But someone needs to know. An _Uchiha_ needs to know. One with power needs to understand what is at stake, should they fail. 

"Your name is Uchiha Nadeshiko. You are the bastard daughter of Uchiha Tajima. You are planning to marry a Hyūga man, abandoned by his clan for being born without the Byakugan - ,"

Her arrow sings through the air. The Rinnegan pulls him, and Sasuke follows. Nadeshiko does not stop firing, and Sasuke moves to plain flash steps, shushin after shushin, too fast for her to see. 

"You will have a daughter you will name Emi, who will have a daughter named Kanae, who will have three daughters. One, she will name Mikoto. She will give birth to two sons. And in her lifetime, the Uchiha clan will be slaughtered. Her sons will be the only survivors." 

Nadeshiko uses her bow, tucks it under her arm and lashes out with it. Sasuke ducks under the blow. She's hardly broken a sweat, but neither has he. Nadeshiko was born into a war. Sasuke only inherited one. 

"The older son killed the clan. The younger son will kill his brother. Then, a war will break out. Tsukuyomi will be corrupted. The Hyūga will forget their ways, and a foreign goddess will try to usurp him, and Amaterasu. She will try to eat the world." 

Nadeshiko throws a punch, then an elbow, then her knee. She's a flurry of activity, of pure  _fight_. She's good. Her robes hardly get in the way. Her black eyes are pensive even as Sasuke speaks, and he wonders if she's gauging his skill or if she's actually paying attention. 

"She will win."

"The Heavenly Mother would never allow such a thing," she says, spitting the words. "You speak _lies_."

"I used the goddess's black flames to die," Sasuke says. And that's enough. Because no one outside of the Uchiha would know such a technique, would be able to use it. So few Uchiha had the Sharingan, and even fewer could call upon Amaterasu's strength to be of use in battle. 

"Then how are you living?" 

She doesn't look young, though her age speaks for her. She looks weary, though nearly half convinced. Maybe a little less. He appreciates her skepticism. It'll keep her alive. 

"The Sage of the Six Paths decided I had more work to do." 

He's close enough to her now. She can see his Rinnegan, and the three black tomoe that dot it. It must look strange to her, foreign. Tsukuyomi's colors on Amaterasu's pattern. The thing of myths or the imagination. 

"The Sage," Nadeshiko murmurs. A great and wise man, supposedly. The first man born with the ability to manipulate chakra. Every shinobi in this time could figure a way to trace their lineage back to him. Amaterasu may have given the Uchiha her magnificent eyes and her breath of life, but chakra had come from another man entirely. 

Sasuke wonders if he should tell her where the Sharingan really came from. He doesn't see the point. It wouldn't do any harm, and it wouldn't do any good either. 

"You are not from this time," Nadeshiko surmises. "That or you are an excellent spy. I haven't even told my clan head about the marriage offer made to me. And I have told no one what I plan to name my children."

"Foresight is a gift," he replies, though really it's hindsight guiding him.

"What are you called?"

"Itachi."

It slips from his lips like he was planning on saying it. Nadeshiko wrinkles her nose, but nods. 

"What are your intentions towards the Uchiha?" she asks. 

Sasuke lifts a brow. He's tempted to say something rude, but he's still talking to his own great-great-great grandmother. Being an ass to her would get him slapped upside the head in the Pure Land. By his mother, his aunts,  _and_ Itachi. 

"I intend to save them from themselves."

Nadeshiko sniffs and looks tempted to roll her eyes. 

"You crawled out of your own grave," she says. "You look as though you started rotting there and then changed your mind. You could barely save yourself from _me_."

Sasuke lifts his hand slowly, and uses his fingers to push back the hair covering his right eye. Nadeshiko's gaze tracks the movement, and when he flashes the familiar red of the Sharingan, her eyes immediately cant downwards at his feet. She vaults herself out of his space and pulls three kunai from her sleeve. 

" _What_ are you?" 

He can see the moment her belief takes over. His simple garments, his crawling from the grave, his two swords, his magnificent eyes and his knowledge beyond this world. A son not killed, but perhaps a grandson with new knowledge, sent to bring the world to harmony.

"I am called _Itachi_ ," he says severely. He is _not_ in the mood to be mistaken for a god. Besides, he only has his swords. No mirror, no jewel; he cannot be descended of the goddess without them. 

Nadeshiko nods, though he can tell she only half believes him. He won't be able to stand her fear or her reverence if she shows either to him. 

"I am going to need your help."

She looks up at him, her weapons still drawn. And wasn't that funny, that even when she thought he was the grandson of their goddess, she was still willing to stab him if he was a threat to their people? It was exactly what Sasuke expected of an acolyte of Amaterasu. He wonders if his aunts would have done the same. If Itachi would have. 

Knowing the Uchiha, probably. 

"With what?" she asks. 

Sasuke takes in a deep breath and hopes he's made the right decision. 

"There is a stone tablet, and there is a statue. Both of them must be destroyed."

* * *

He's too weak to summon the Gedō statue in his current state. He may have the Sage's chakra, but he doesn't have reserves like Nagato had, or Obito's bodily modifications. He also only very recently came back from the dead. He needs to regain his strength. 

"This will work," Nadeshiko says, holding him up. 

He had disarmed himself and given his swords over to her. She holds him up easily, taking almost all of his weight. They'd tied a shredded piece of black cloth off the edge of Sasuke's cloak to cover his eyes.

He looked much too much like an Uchiha, from his dark eyes to his bone structure. His hair was long enough for him to imitate a blind man, and his self awareness was broad enough for it, too. He had learned a great deal from the snakes. He had trained blind with them, too.

She leads him to the shrine, the one that Sasuke knows from the old pilgrimages and from his dreams when he no longer had a family to go with. He regrets only being able to see the outside in its full glory. He can only imagine the inside as resplendent, now in its heyday. 

"Nadeshiko - ,"

There's the pattering of feet on fine wood, and Sasuke hears two, maybe three people. One of them is a man, probably a priest. The other two are women, other shrine maidens or priestesses of Amaterasu themselves. 

"Someone buried him alive near our territory," she says, sounding pained. "He clawed his way out on his own, but he was wandering." 

"Then the fighting we heard earlier today - ?"

"Him," Nadeshiko affirms. "His name is Itachi. He needs our aid."

"Nadeshiko," comes a soft, stern voice. "You know we cannot - ,"

"I know we are at war, Souta," she snaps. "I am well aware that our resources are running thin. But our goddess never turned away a beggar, or someone in need of her light."

She stands firm. Though his eyes are bound, Sasuke can see a shade of the woman she will become. Or maybe just the woman she is already. Nadeshiko was an Uchiha woman, and Uchiha women were only three or four times as stubborn as the men. She'd make a fine clan head, if it came down to her. 

"Nadeshiko is right," comes a woman's voice. Sasuke can feel her eyes on him. They probably hang on his gaunt frame, on the thinness of his cheeks, and the odd robustness of his chakra despite it. "Any man who climbs out of a grave to feel the sun on his face is a child of the goddess. We will make space for him."

Nadeshiko breathes a sigh of relief. "Thank you, Mitsūo-sama," she murmurs, but she stops short. 

"He will be your responsibility," Mitsūo continues. "His care and his education."

"His education?" Souta asks. 

"Yes."

There is a moment of silence where they all look at him. Sasuke tests the weight of their gaze, but does not lift his head to meet it. 

"You are a shinobi," Mitsūo says.

He turns his face in the direction of her voice and says, "I am."

"For whom do you fight?" 

"For my family," he replies. "They are all dead now. I fight for no one." 

"A mercenary?" 

"A pacifist."

He'll never be his brother, but Sasuke knows that was what Itachi had wanted. A world of peace. 

"Hm," Mitsūo says. "Do you intend to stay here with us, at the shrine when your health has returned?"

If Konoha didn't come into fruition, yes. And even if it didn't, yes. He could do more here, helping his family from within it than by being on the outside, trying to manipulate them. 

"I do."

"And what do you know of our ways?"

"Mitsūo-sama," Nadeshiko interrupts, voice imploring. "He isn't well - ,"

"He will answer before he takes another step into a sacred place," Mitsūo says, voice firm. 

"My mother told me her name was Amaterasu," he says. "She is that which illuminates heaven. Who gives seeds light enough to grow, who banishes shadows that frighten children. Who gives us fire to warm ourselves by, to cook our meals, and to protect our brethren."

He licks his dry lips. He doesn't like talking so much. He isn't a fan of the attention. He had too much of that on him as a child after the Massacre, and he never settled into holding it comfortably on his shoulders. Even when he was an arrogant genin, he didn't like being looked at.

He hopes he'll be able to be silent, or at least close to it for the rest of his time in the shrine. 

"I was buried," Sasuke says, "and I was cold. I did not want to die. And I could feel her light, just out of reach. I don't know if it is luck, or if it is destiny that I was found by this miko, but I must give back the goddess what she gave to me."

Nadeshiko gives his arm a gentle squeeze, and it's odd how reassuring it is. This is a girl he hardly knows, who had decided to trust him because he knows things he should not, now comforting him. 

Maybe she can feel that they're family. That they are connected in a direct but distant way. 

"He will be your responsibility, Nadeshiko, and yours alone. His successes and his failures are yours." There's the sound of Mitsūo adjusting her garments or turning around, then the other two are moving along with her. "Prepare him a room away from the ill. We do not know what he carries on him. After a week, you may introduce him to the others."

"Thank you, Mitsūo-sama," Nadeshiko says. When she bows, she takes Sasuke with her. He mumbles his thanks as well, until Mitsūo's footsteps and that of her attendants have disappeared. 

"Are you really a pacifist?" she whispers, raising them both to their full height, and walking them slowly down the hall. Sasuke has a split second to decide if he should follow her as if he's never walked these floors before, or if he should follow his childhood memories. 

"My brother was," he replies. 

It was one thing Fugaku hadn't managed to break either his sons of. Itachi may have been a killing machine, but he was a pacifist at heart. And Sasuke had always looked up to his big brother. Even when Itachi was standing in their parent's blood, Sasuke hadn't been able to shake the disappointment that came not just with his brother being the killer, but with his brother also being his _hero_.

He had emulated Itachi to the best of his ability since the day he became aware that he was a second son. And maybe Itachi hadn't meant to impart the trait and maybe Sasuke had just become that way by virtue of only wanting to hurt one specific person, but a distaste for violence crept into Sasuke early. S

He had never been one to shed blood for the sake of it. He only ever wanted Itachi's life and then after that, those of the kage. But it was for one purpose. Slaughter had never sat well on his stomach. 

And in this lifetime, there is no one for Sasuke to kill. Not anymore. Only things to destroy. Two things. And after that, ideas to sow. Little sparks, flames that needed fanning. That was his purpose here. 

He wonders if his brother will mind him usurping his dream as well as his name. 

* * *

They give him a room and food enough to sustain him. It's strange, eating dishes that are the older versions of what he would eat at his grandmother's house. The spices the Uchiha use are native to this territory, and don't grow the same way near Konoha. Everything is a little bit hotter and burns his throat going down. 

Nadeshiko hides her laughter behind her hand when they take their meals together. Sasuke ignores her. 

"It gets her fire back into you," she explains, ladling more soup into his bowl before he can stop her. "Your breath of life is fanned with hot food."

A decent explanation. Sakura would probably scoff at it and narrow her eyes in interest at the same time. Naruto would just eat. Kakashi would, too. Karin - Karin would push her glasses up her nose and pester Nadeshiko for more information. Suigetsu would probably choke. Jūgo would ask for seconds. 

"It's good," Sasuke says. He had always liked his grandmother Kanae's cooking. Itachi had seen how well Sasuke ate whenever Kanae-obaa-sama cooked and had taken it upon himself to learn her recipes at her elbow. Their father had narrowed his eyes, pursed his lips, displeased. It was a distraction, he had said. Though Fugaku was the clan head, Mikoto was still the one descended from Uchiha Tajima's line. Itachi learning how to cook was the one line she would not budge on. 

Strange, how she let her child into war zones, into ANBU, into committing half a genocide, but drew the line at him being kept away from cooking. She'd be a different woman in the world Sasuke was going to help create. Or she wouldn't, and Fugaku would be the one to change. 

"Eat, Itachi," Nadeshiko insists, offering him more rice and more soup before he can even finish what's in front of him. She doesn't try to help him as another person would. Sasuke is sure he looks infirm, with his too long hair and his lack of weight. Even though they have settled on the ruse of him being a blind man, Nadeshiko doesn't bother babying him. She just gives orders. 

An Uchiha woman, through and through. 

He doesn't want to admit that he kind of likes her. His mouth quirks up in an approximation of a smirk, and he eats.

* * *

Enough of his strength comes back in those slow days for him to actually be put to use in the temple. Nadeshiko sets him to simple tasks, mostly with math. Which is irritating, but he does it.

The temple has very specific needs for survival, and those needs mostly involve trade with the Hyūga in the mountains. They don't give Sasuke any information on what he's counting, what sums he's doing, and why, but they drop an abacus in front of him and leave Nadeshiko at his side. She calls out the numbers and Sasuke puts them together. Hours pass like that in a comfortable quiet. She doesn't ask many questions, but she murmurs to him about what she sees from the office door. 

People scurrying to and fro, young mikos and old priestesses. Acolytes who still aren't sure of their place. Sasuke learns about the men and women who tend the temple, who rise through the night and at dawn to feed the flames that flicker in the slim lanterns that hang outside the temple walls. 

When he proves that he's got a decent head for basic maths, they put him to work peeling potatoes. And cucumbers. Washing rice and trimming fat from meat. Nadeshiko rolls his sleeves up for him, insisting that he's doing even that much wrong. She clucks her tongue in disapproval when he peels his first potato, knocks the knife expertly out of his hand and redoes it. 

She takes his hands in hers and moves his fingers across the smoothness of it, shows him that way how to do it. It keeps up the ruse, that's for sure. But it's - it's nice. The last person to show him any such tenderness was Naruto, and that was when they were both dead. Before that, it was Sakura, and it was tainted with the looming knowledge that Sasuke was settling into his deathbed. 

This is domestic. Comfortable. The way home ought to feel. 

Nadeshiko is stoic as Sasuke's father and soft as his mother. She yields. She jostles his shoulder when he does something wrong, or leaves her fingers light against his elbow to tell him to stop before correcting him. She doesn't raise her voice. Her smiles are hard won but her mirth is evident everywhere. You just have to see it. 

Naruto had told him once, during the war, that he smiled more than he thought he did. Karin had narrowed her eyes, disbelieving. 

"Sasuke-kun rarely smiles," she said, convinced of her rightness.

But Naruto shook his head, shrugged his shoulders. 

"You're not looking hard enough," he replied. "He's smiling right now." 

He'd never explained what he meant by that, how he saw something in Sasuke that others who spent just as much time around him failed to see. Sasuke had been such a happy child before his world upended itself. When he was lost in his own agony, there was no space for laughter. 

To this day, he doesn't know what Naruto meant. But looking at Nadeshiko lift an eyebrow when one of the younger shrine maidens stare too long at Sasuke, or when someone in the kitchens over salts something to the point that a priest spits out his food, Sasuke kind of gets the idea. 

"Here," she says one day, tugging at his hand and placing a small bundle in it. Sasuke opens the kerchief and runs his fingers over what feel like little cherry tomatoes. 

"You always eat more when there are tomatoes in your food," Nadeshiko says. "Hurry up and eat them."

He pops one in his mouth and tucks the rest into his sleeve, just as Souta comes by, huffing and puffing about a rabbit infestation in the vegetable garden. He passes them by on his way to find Mitsūo to, "Figure out how to kill the damn things before they start fucking,". 

"Rabbits?" Sasuke says, once he's sure Souta is out of hearing distance. 

Nadeshiko shrugs, Sasuke can hear it from the rustle of her garments. 

"We'll have stew tonight, then, won't we?"

Sasuke sneaks a cherry tomato into his mouth, and feels rather like a child whose grandmother is sneaking him candies behind his parent's backs. He supposes that's exactly what's happening. 

"I like it better skewered," he muses.

"I like you better quiet."

* * *

The eyes on him are insistent, though they are polite. Little is said to him. He's Nadeshiko's responsibility, and she does well enough at her job that she's hardly reprimanded. 

It takes time, but Sasuke is patient. He was more insistent in his youth, but he's over twenty now, and feels old. He's living a second lifetime and now he knows how to take his time. The Uchiha are stubborn, he knows that firsthand. It will take more than just showing up from nowhere to change their minds. 

So he keeps his head down and works. He sits silent, just behind Nadeshiko when she reports his progress to Mitsūo, the high priestess of the temple. He does the tasks Nadeshiko assigns to him. When she is called away to enter her trance state, he waits silently until her work is complete. 

Sasuke isn't quite sure if he believes in spirits or not, the way that these people do. Itachi's faith was mostly unshakeable. His aunts and his mother had been the same way. Besides, though he was loathe to give Kaguya the title, Sasuke had seen a goddess. He had seen her son. Had felt their immeasurable power. 

Amaterasu's black flames eating him without hurting him should have been all the proof he needed. It really should have. But something held him back from placing his faith entirely in her. 

Maybe it was because he had come so close to god that he was having a difficult time believing in her. Like when you say a word too many times and it stops sounding like itself, or when you get too close to a mirror and you stop recognizing your face. 

When he goes out into the sunlight, when he feels her warmth on his face, Sasuke imagines that he could believe, if he tried. If he convinced himself. When he feels his new fūton ability thrumming inside of him, when he tastes nectarines in the back of his throat, something in him aches to pour his faith into Amaterasu. Into the Sage. 

But those gods failed him before. And Sasuke doesn't know how to believe in something that has scorned him. The village system taught him that. His only brother taught him that. His father had, too. 

So when Nadeshiko closes herself off to the world to commune in peace with the spirits, Sasuke will sometimes wander. He's well enough now, healthy enough and trusted to be on his own in the temple. He keeps to himself and stays in sight, close to walls for his supposed blindness. For the most part, he's ignored.

When he's better trusted, he'll get to work on the Gedō statue. In the meantime, he decides to worry over the stone tablet. He had half a mind to destroy the thing. Why the damned Sage thought it was a good idea to write it in code was beyond him, especially if it could so easily be cracked then edited by Black Zetsu. He considers altering it himself, but he isn't sure if it would be worth the trouble. 

What would he say? How would he rewrite it, undo the damage Black Zetsu had tried to inflict? 

It's worrisome, and so is how little information he's provided on the war. He doesn't ask outright; he's a better shinobi than that. But Sasuke knows it's odd how little they speak of the conflict that's killing their kinsmen. He's seen enough of the weak and infirm to know that the wounded come to the temple for healing. Amaterasu's holy fire was good for bringing out poisons, for encouraging fevers to be sweat out.

When someone calls Nadeshiko and she rises to her feet to leave him without telling him where she's going or why, Sasuke understands. He doesn't need to be told. The acolytes in this temple are the only trained medics the Uchiha have. 

He wishes he had paid more attention when Sakura had tried to teach them all basic chakra assisted first aid during the war. There hadn't been time to learn any effectively. The remaining Hyūga had picked it up faster because of their easy sight into the tenketsu system. Sasuke had been one of the last three people with a Sharingan on the face of the planet, and the only one with a Rinnegan. Learning medical ninjutsu hadn't been his top priority. It hadn't been Kakashi's or Obito's either. 

If he ever sees Sakura again, he's going to convince her to convince whoever was in charge of the village to make that art form mandatory. Not just for one shinobi on every squad, but for all of them. Even a little something was better than nothing at all. 

The incense they burn in the temple isn't enough to cover the stench of infection. Of rot. Of death. Sasuke knows that stink well. And when Nadeshiko leaves him to pray, to try to speak with whatever spirits will listen to her, Sasuke's jaw clicks from him clenching it so hard. 

He didn't come back in time to watch his clansmen die all over again.

* * *

"Stop telling them I'm a god," he grouses.

Nadeshiko looks at him, holding a tray of their breakfast. Sasuke has since been wrangled into a haircut, courtesy of his great-great-great grandmother. He'll admit he looks much more presentable, and less like someone that crawled out of a grave.

"What on earth are you talking about?" she asks. 

Sasuke lifts an eyebrow. Nadeshiko hardly looks bothered. She sets the tray down and begins serving them both. 

"They all look at me like I'm different - ,"

"You crawled out of a grave."

"I'm aware - ,"

"With two swords."

"Which Mitsūo still won't give back to me - ,"

"Claiming to be a pacifist."

Nadeshiko nudges rabbit skewers with grilled vegetables toward him, and a small bowl of rice with pepper flakes speckled over the top. 

"I am a pacifist," Sasuke says, mumbling his thanks before he begins eating. 

"And so is the grandson of the goddess." 

" _Stop_ telling them I'm a god."

"I didn't tell them anything I didn't surmise for myself when I first met you."

Sasuke narrows his eyes. 

"You don't think I'm a god, do you?"

Nadeshiko looks at him, her own eyes narrowed. She picks up her skewer and nibbles off a bit of rabbit, before shrugging her shaking her head.

"I don't," she replies. "You came with two swords instead of one, and no jewel, and no mirror. You don't have her blood."

Sasuke relaxes minutely. It had been enough, having the youngest of the acolytes stare at him with wide eyes while the oldest of them let their gazes rest lightly on them. Sasuke knows that the wisest of them know he is not blind. Mitsūo was too clever by half to not see through that ruse. 

He's been on a pedestal since his academy days. He didn't like that kind of attention then and he doesn't like it now. 

"But," Nadeshiko continues, "there are other things you could be." She drums her fingers on the low table they eat from, her eyes firmly on him. "The spirits of the Nara come to them in the form of deer. Those of the Aburame in the form of bugs. There's supposedly a small cult in the Senju that worships trees, or there was, when the Mokuton first presented itself. It's died off since then. You could be any number of things."

"Like human."

"Like human," Nadeshiko acquiesces. "But a human from where, and influenced by what, is a different thing entirely."

Sasuke holds his skewer steady and rips a piece of meat off it just to be contrary. Grease slips down his chin and he wipes at it with his hand. Nadeshiko doesn't so much as lift an eyebrow at the display. 

"There are other gods than the Heavenly Mother," she says. "And the dead all exist in the same space in the same time. The dead from now, the dead from the past, and the dead from the future." 

"You think I'm from the future?" he scoffs. 

Nadeshiko hums. 

"I believe the sun is a wolf and a woman," she replies. "I believe the moon is a man and a dreamer. A dead man rising from the grave, knowing things he should not?" Nadeshiko scoffs. "That wouldn't be the strangest thing I've put my faith in."

"Then tell them that," Sasuke says, "and stop letting them think I'm Ninigi."

Nadeshiko shrugs her shoulders.

"If you are, then it puts me in a good position for inheriting the clan head mantle," she says, "and if you aren't, then you're still probably some kind of spirit. Ninigi planted rice and you came shooting out of the earth."

Sasuke rolls his eyes and bites down so hard on the skewer, he nearly snaps the wood into his own mouth. Nadeshiko smiles at him, though he gets the sense it's more because she's teasing him than because he's done something amusing.

Telling so much of the truth to his sixteen-year-old great-great-great grandmother probably wasn't his best bet. She was smarter than he should've given her credit for. 

"I'm not a god," he insists. 

"Finish your rabbit."

* * *

The kunai buries itself to the hilt beside his temple. Sasuke has already moved. He has no use for his eye bindings at night. He shushins out of the way, eyes blazing when he looks up to see who has come to kill him. 

Souta is seething, dark eyes livid as he stares at Sasuke. He has more knives drawn and he's already throwing them, his initial failed assassination attempt already making him sloppy. 

" _You_ ," he seethes. "You _killed_ the _emissary_ of the goddess. I _can't_ channel him anymore."

Sasuke doesn't feel the need to comment. Mitsūo still has his swords, but he doesn't need Tsurugi and Murakumo for this. Souta is sloppy with his rage, with his religious fervor gone sour in him. The Uchiha always went sour when what they loved was suddenly out of reach. 

Souta loved Black Zetsu, who had probably fashioned himself to be an emissary of Amaterasu. No Uchiha of the temple would ever pledge themselves to a wicked, corrupted thing like Kaguya. A woman who made herself into a god instead of being born one. 

"You are a _demon_ ," Souta hisses, and it's then that Sasuke sees the ofuda attached to the kunai. He lifts an eyebrow. He planned to kill the man and exorcise the demon, no exorcise the demon to save the man. Typical. 

Sasuke skirts the walls, running through the small space to exhaust Souta's number of weapons. He doesn't catch and return any of the kunai. He can't afford to kill a priest. That would definitely upset Itachi, and his mother, and his aunts in the Pure Land. Sasuke doesn't want to deal with that kind of karma haunting him into his promised next life. Even if the priest is an idiot for believing Amaterasu would have a representative who wore clothes that did not let light touch its body. 

Souta begins chanting and Sasuke drops to the ground in front of him. He throws out a punch and is pleasantly surprised when it's deflected. Nadeshiko isn't an outlier then; all the acolytes of Amaterasu were battle ready. Probably because of the war. Sasuke is pretty sure his aunts were noncombatants, but that had also been because they hadn't been born with the Sharingan. They had never even entered the academy; they entered the priesthood when they would have been genin. 

Souta keeps up his chanting while Sasuke kicks at him. It's easy to see now that Souta hadn't thought this through. He had probably spent the weeks since Sasuke had appeared trying to summon Black Zetsu, then furiously thinking up this plan, only to have it blow up in his face. He probably knew Sasuke wasn't blind from the beginning, too. 

" _Zen_ ," Souta bellows, shoving his hand forward. An ofuda is on his palm and Sasuke lets the strike connect. Lets it land square on his forehead. 

Nothing happens. But there are footsteps in the hall. 

Nadeshiko arrives first, her hair loose from sleeping, an unsheathed tantō in her hand. She takes one look at the situation before she storms into the room, rage lit in her face. Sasuke's never seen her look like that before. Clearly Souta hasn't either. 

"Release him before I kill you where you stand," she snaps. 

Fear cracks into Souta's expression, but he doesn't move his hand from Sasuke's forehead and Sasuke doesn't move out of his reach. 

"You don't scare me, _girl_ ," he sneers. But it's very clear that she does. 

"I am Uchiha Tajima's last born," Nadeshiko growls. "Unclean or not, my blood is his. You are lower than me. Drop the scroll and remove your hand from my ward before I remove your hand from your _arm_."

"He is a demon," Souta insists, "he has deceived you."

"You are a fanatic and a fool," Nadeshiko returns. "And you have no place in our temple. We do not draw blood here. You were going to kill him before you tried to exorcise whatever demon you think is in his body."

"You never saw his face."

Both of them turn to look at Sasuke. He only looks at Souta, where confusion is pressing in behind his eyes. 

"He never let the light touch him," he continues. "No thing sent by the goddess would refuse her light." 

"I - ," Souta begins, throat clicking with how dry it is. With how afraid he is. "He - How could you know about - ,"

"Itachi is more than all of us," Nadeshiko says, voice sharp. "While you were fooled by a demon, something true came to protect our clansmen."

Souta's eyes widen and he snatches his palm away from Sasuke's forehead. Sasuke tries not to roll his eyes; there went the rumors of him being a god, right out the goddamn window.

"He said - ," Souta begins, swallowing hard. "He said that - ,"

"Our goddess is not a _rabbit._ She is not prey. She doesn't have to run. She is not a hunted thing that uses spies to do her work for her." Sasuke spits, rage surging in him from nowhere. When did Amaterasu become his? When did this fool presuming to follow her without knowing her at all become something offensive to him? "Our goddess is a _wolf_."

Souta falls to his knees and starts to pray at Sasuke's feet. Sasuke pinches the bridge of his nose and looks at the ceiling. There are knives in the ceiling. Fuck. 

He turns to Nadeshiko who looks significantly calmer than she did only a moment ago. Sasuke gestures toward Souta, who is rocking back and forth, begging forgiveness. 

"What did this demon say to you?" Nadeshiko asks, interrupting Souta's prayers. 

Souta looks up, eyes glimmering with yet shed tears. Sasuke feels both humbled and disgusted. There is something uncomfortably intimate, seeing a man who is convinced he has failed his goddess, on his knees, praying for her to show him mercy. 

It's even more uncomfortable when he's asking for that mercy through Sasuke. 

"He said," Souta begins, eyes flickering from Nadeshiko to Sasuke. "He showed me a tablet. He said there were holy words on it, that I needed to decipher. But my Sharingan is weak. I get dizzy, I have fainting spells. I could only uncover a few words at a time - ,"

"Take me to it." 

Souta's gaze lands back on Sasuke, and it's as if he's had a revelation. Like now he understands how he can appease his goddess after so serious a slight. 

"Of course!"

He launches himself to his feet and takes off. Sasuke follows and Nadeshiko comes shortly thereafter. Sasuke cants his head just to the left to see her before asking, "Why were you the only one that came?"

Nadeshiko snorts. 

"Plenty of people pray loudly, late in the night," she replies. "But you don't pray at all."

She says it with a smirk and Sasuke rolls his eyes. 

They follow Souta with quiet feet down hallways, through a hidden passageway, and down a long flight of stone stairs. The coldness of the place should have been the first warning. No place this far from the light would have anything of great significance to the goddess. 

"This is supposed to be a prayer space," Nadeshiko murmurs from behind him. "When we need the upmost privacy." 

He can hear the anger in her, that a place as hallowed as this one has been defiled by something she doesn't yet understand. Souta flinches in front of them, but leads them onward. 

The tablet has been well hidden. Souta managed to make it look like a stone altar, facing down, where the words can't be read. But when he breaks it up, it's obvious what it is. 

Nadeshiko's brows are furrowed, but she doesn't reach forward to touch it. Instead, she stays half a step behind Sasuke, while Souta illuminates the cold, dark cavern with a small katon. 

"It says there is a technique that can save the Uchiha," Souta says, "an eternal moon. I thought - ,"

He doesn't manage to say much more before Nadeshiko is striding forward and slapping him full on the face. 

"Your Sharingan is imperfect," she snaps, voice low and fierce. "You thought an eternal moon would save a people who worship the sun? You thought turning your back on our goddess would save us? You are a _fool_."

She raises her hand to hit him again, but Sasuke catches her wrist and stops her before the strike can land again. 

"The Infinite Tsukuyomi is not a technique meant to save anyone, but to serve one person."

Her eyebrows furrow on confusion, but Souta's gaze widens. Sasuke lets his Rinnegan whorl to life, the black tomoe swirling sleepily in it. 

"There is a rabbit goddess, who ate the fruit of the God Tree," he says, eyes scanning the tablet. What's written on it is exactly what he expects to see, but he doesn't bother reading it verbatim. "Through her, her sons gained the ability to use chakra and spread their knowledge of it to the world. But she grew jealous and wanted all of the chakra that had spread across the world back to herself. So she tried to steal it. Her sons beat her back and sealed her into the moon." 

He drops Nadeshiko's wrist, and she lets her arm fall limply at her side. Souta looks from one of them to the other. 

"The Infinite Tsukyomi is the technique the rabbit goddess will use to subdue the world, and to devour all of the chakra in it."

His gaze flickers to Souta, who flinches hard away from him. 

"This tablet was not written to encourage the Uchiha to awaken the Rinnegan and create the Infinite Tsukuyomi. It was written to keep us from doing that."

"The Rinnegan," Nadeshiko breathes. "Your eye - ,"

"There are instructions on how to receive the Mangekyō Sharingan. More details about the rabbit goddess and her sons. Details about tailed beasts."

"Bijū," Souta mouths. Nadeshiko presses a hand to her forehead. 

"It is important,  _dangerous_ information," Sasuke says. 

Nadeshiko looks to him, her lips pursed. 

"Why doesn't the whole clan know about this?" she asks. Sasuke knows that she's really asking why she didn't know. Why Souta was able to figure it out, but not her. 

"Because a message only half understood isn't understood at all," he replies. "An ancestor with the Rinnegan wrote it, and left it to his descendants. It was kept in hopes that one day, someone would be able to read it."

"That's _stupid_. No one could read it!"

" _You_ can read it," Souta breathes. " _Who_ are you?"

"My name is Itachi," Sasuke replies, exhausted by this sudden repeat of his first interaction with Nadeshiko. 

"How did you get the Rinnegan?" Nadeshiko asks. 

"It was given to me."

"By _who_?" she presses. 

"The Sage."

Nadeshiko runs a hand through her sleep mussed hair, exasperated. Souta looks like he's on the verge of tears. 

"So what do we do about the tablet?" Nadeshiko asks. "No Uchiha in their right mind would summon a foreign goddess, but the Rinnegan, the Mangekyō, those could end the war." 

"Any Uchiha who lost enough would do anything to keep what was left," Sasuke replies. "I've seen desperate men do it. And I've seen what happens when they try to control things they don't understand."

Nadeshiko closes her mouth, whatever argument she was going to make dying on her lips. 

"What's written at the end are forgeries made by the thing that fooled you," Sasuke says to Souta. "We need to rewrite the tablet with the original wording and destroy the original."

Nadeshiko shakes her head. 

"It's been passed down for generations with no one able to read it," she returns. "Someone will notice it's suddenly simple to decipher."

Sasuke shakes his head, the idea forming in his mind as he says it out loud. 

"We don't change the whole thing," he replies. "We just make it easier to read."

It was possible to receive the Mangekyō without killing a loved one. You could receive it by seeing them die or just by being deeply effected by their death. The story went that Uchiha Izuna received his when he lost a lover in the war. Uchiha Madara gained his when his step-mother died. 

He could rewrite the tablet to be deciphered by the Mangekyō. He could make it difficult to read, yes, but there were only two Mangekyō Sharingan in the world right now. He could add details about the threat of Kaguya, about why the Rinnegan should stay hidden, why its power was unnecessary. Why it begged for Kaguya's return. 

"Will you help me?" he asks. 

Nadeshiko looks tired in the low light cast from Souta's katon. But she looks steely, too. Resolved. 

"I gave you my word then," she says simply. "You still have it now." 

"I will help you," Souta adds. "I want to fix what I have nearly ruined." 

Sasuke nods. 

"We need a chisel, and we need a tablet matching this one almost exactly."

"My doton are decent," Nadeshiko says, rolling her sleeves up. "Let me see that."

"I'll go get a chisel," Souta says. 

He disappears back up the stairs. Nadeshiko watches him go, untrusting. 

"He could wake up the whole temple," she murmurs. 

Sasuke shrugs his shoulder, committing the wording on the tablet to memory. 

"He won't."

* * *

It takes them all night. Nadeshiko has to create the tablet seven times before it's an exact replica. She burns it until it is smooth and perfect before Sasuke begins carving words into it. 

He activates his own Mangekyō for it and leaves the language in the Sage's exact words. He ignores all of what Black Zetsu added to it. Nadeshiko watches and Souta hands him the tools as he works. There is only silence in the sacred place until Sasuke finishes his work. When Sasuke finishes transferring the words, Nadeshiko destroys the original. The copy is pristine. 

"Hide it again," he says to Souta, settling the tools on the ground. 

He goes to the task immediately, eager to please. And when he's finished, Sasuke waves him over. The strain of using the Mangekyō so much has nearly exhausted his reserves, but it was worth it. Madara and Izuna would both be able to read the tablet now. If Izuna lived, he'd be able to temper his brother's folly. And if he didn't, well, there was a  war going on. More Uchiha were bound to unlock the Mangekyō sooner rather than later. 

"You did well, Souta," Sasuke says. 

Souta smiles, immeasurably relieved. Sasuke smiles back, and lets his pinwheel swirl. Using Tsukuyomi is effortless, almost easy. Souta's smile stiffens, and then he is unconscious. He catches him before he hits the ground, and lays him out on the rough stone floor. Nadeshiko doesn't even stand to help him. 

"You're making it hard to believe you aren't a god," she says, amused, though she is tired. 

"Three can't keep a secret," Sasuke says. 

"Two can keep a secret," she returns, "if one of them is dead."

Sasuke shrugs. 

"Then we'll be fine. I've been dead already."

Nadeshiko snorts and pushes herself to her feet. 

"He'll think it was all a bad dream," he says. "All of it."

"All of it," Nadeshiko murmurs. 

She rubs at her eyes with the heels of her hands. Dawn is coming soon and neither of them have slept a wink. Sasuke is more used to it than she is. 

"Will you do the same to me, if I'm not useful?" she asks. 

Sasuke looks at her and knows he wouldn't. She'll never stop being useful. Bastard or not, she's Tajima's third born daughter. In his timeline, she leads their clan out of the war and into Konoha. She keeps the Uchiha alive. She's a political powerhouse in the temple, and her marriage to an outcast Hyūga will give rise to heirs with powerful Sharingan eyes. 

So he says, "No," because it's the truth. 

Nadeshiko smiles at him, kind of sad and kind of awful. 

"You're a bad liar, Ninigi."

As they head back up the stairs and out of the sacred place, Souta sleeping soundly on the floor behind them, he turns to her. 

"There may come a day when the Rinnegan is necessary again," he says, voice low and quiet. "But it must only be used to protect the clan, and all those that the clan loves."

Nadeshiko purses her lips. 

"All those the clan loves?" 

"Your betrothed is a Hyūga," he says. "And not in the clan. But if I could save his life with this eye, I would. Because you love him. That is how the Rinnegan should be used. To protect our precious people, and their precious people." 

"But that would mean protecting everyone," Nadeshiko returns. "Everyone is precious to someone else."

Sasuke turns over his shoulder to look at her. He can see maybe a shade of the woman she will become. She became the clan head at twenty, four years from now, when it was clear that Madara would not be returning. She is twenty in her portraits. It won't take long for her to grow into that person. 

He's already changing things, but certain pieces will stay constant. Nadeshiko understands him. And that will be enough. One Uchiha at a time. 

"Exactly," he says. 

* * *

 

The war ends. 

It happens so abruptly, Sasuke is pretty sure he's dreaming. Nadeshiko is similarly confused, and so is everyone in the temple. Word comes to them last, though it spreads through the clan compound like wildfire. 

Uchiha Izuna was struck down in battle by Senju Tobirama. Then, a pink haired woman, claiming to be on Hashirama's wife's personal guard healed him. Saved his life, then walked right back off the battlefield. 

An annoyed kind of pride blooms in Sasuke's chest when he hears about it. She made it. She did it. The hardest work had been up to her and she had done it, even after she buried him. Even after she stood face to face with Madara, who was for all intents and purposes, the reason Sasuke was dying. She had done it. 

The fighting stops immediately, and all of the Uchiha rush home to celebrate. Children screech for their parents, lovers welcome each other into their homes. There are roaring bonfires and hot cooked food to celebrate the living returning home. 

And at dawn, after the revelry is done, the dead are carried to the temple to burn. 

Sasuke isn't allowed to do much by way of the ceremony. He's a rather unofficial acolyte. More of Nadeshiko's apprentice than anything else. So while she's busy doing things that matter, Sasuke peels potatoes and sweeps floors and pours holy oil into the lanterns. He prepares no bodies for burial, but he gathers flowers for the funeral rites. He turns his face to the sun as she rises, and as the Uchiha gather together to say goodbye to their dead. 

Some families have whole bodies to burn. Some only have the small wooden dog tags not collected by their owners at base camp to feed to the fire. 

Sasuke watches the procession from among the acolytes of the temple. He sees Madara, his clan head, among them. Sees Izuna, living and breathing. A change. A good one, Sasuke hopes. 

The priests and priestesses go about their work with solemn quiet and fewer words than necessary spoken. Madara thanks the deceased for their sacrifice. He begins it, forming the seals for a simple katon. His is the first flame to touch the oiled shrouds of his fallen kinsmen. 

Izuna goes second, then the elders join, then the high priests and priestesses of the temple. Then slowly, all of the assembled Uchiha feed a spark to the fire. 

The oil the corpses have been shrouded in does its best to hide the smell of burning flesh, but not by much. Families with small children are the first to leave. But the firstborns of those who lost their lives all stay until the end. They watch the funeral fire rise into the sky, lick at it, reaching for Amaterasu. 

The blaze rages on, carefully controlled by the acolytes of the temple and by the clan head. Eventually, more and more people peter off and disappear. The temple acolytes duck back inside to prepare urns to sweep the remaining ashes into, which will be burned again in private once the largest fire has died out. 

Madara doesn't budge. Izuna eventually bows out because of his injuries, and is helped into the clan compound by several attendants. Nadeshiko goes with them to tend to Izuna, to see her brother alive. 

Sasuke and Madara are all that's left. Madara notices, face pinched in confusion at the familiar face. Sasuke makes his way to him, holding a cane one of his fellow acolytes had produced for him to use as a walking stick, blithely ignoring the present discomfort Madara shows when he does. 

"My name is Itachi," he says, introducing himself.

"You're blind."

"You're perceptive."

Madara bristles at that. 

"Night's fallen," Sasuke says. "You should rest. A war was ended today."

"I'm aware."

Sasuke lets the silence stretch between them, lets the dying heat of the fire warm him. It has nothing left to eat and so it devours itself. Much like the Uchiha did, and much like they still do. 

"You're Nadeshiko's ward," Madara says carefully, as if he's doing his best not to make some kind of social faux pas. 

"I am."

"So you're a priest." 

"Not yet," Sasuke replies. "I don't plan on it." 

"Oh."

Sasuke lifts a brow. 

"Were you looking to come to me for advice?"

Madara huffs out a breath. 

"Maybe."

"You should speak with your sister. She's wiser than I am."

"We aren't exactly - close." 

"That's easy to solve."

Madara sucks at his teeth, clearly unhappy with the route this conversation has taken. Sasuke wonders if he was this easy to rile up when he was fragile, when wounds he thought would never heal were slowly stitching themselves back together. Then again, he hadn't had much time for the healing, had he?

"She's a bastard, yes," Sasuke says. "But you could legitimize her." 

"I hardly know her," Madara returns. "I can't make her my heir." 

"You can," Sasuke says. "You just won't."

"You're very forward," Madara says, voice clipped, "for a blind priest living on my sister's good graces."

Sasuke nods. 

"Now she's your sister. Before, I thought you said you weren't close." 

"A cremation is a sacred ceremony," Madara bites. "You ought to be quiet."

Sasuke shrugs his shoulder, and lets their words dissolve into silence. The fire won't be there much longer. The clan head's vigil was always supposed to be the longest. The acolytes would return with urns for the ashes and would sweep them away and entrust them to Madara to be burnt again at the following morning.

"Peace is hard won without forgiveness."

Madara says nothing. Sasuke doesn't expect him to reply. Kakashi probably dealt with him often like this as a genin. Trying to say something of value to someone who didn't give a shit about what you were trying to explain. 

"But forgiving the people that hurt you," The village. The Sandaime. The Niidaime. Danzou. Itachi.  _Itachi_. "That's simpler than forgiving yourself. Than giving yourself the chance to  move on from whatever happened to you." 

And he hates. He  _hates_ how his throat tries to close when he talks about it, how tears threaten him, how his stomach drops when he thinks of them. Even after all these years. The trauma of Itachi's illusion was not easily undone, but neither was leaving school one morning with his mother smiling and his father's fondness in his eyes and returning home to their corpses. 

There is still so much of him left in the world he abandoned. And he misses them. All of them. Karin barking orders and Suigetsu ignoring them. Jūgo mending a sparrow's broken wing. 

Sakura healing him for the first time when they were on the same side again, rage turning to respect into a fierce friendship that only losing Ino had tested. 

Naruto sending him here. Naruto on the other side, his mouth on Sasuke's, his affinity curling up, making itself at home inside of him. 

Sasuke lost an entire world when he came here. When Naruto sent them both here. And he has to do everything in his power to make sure he never gets back what he lost. 

"I had to kill my brother," Sasuke says. He can feel Madara go cold as stone. Fratricide is a terrible sin among the Uchiha. It is something that makes outcasts of those who commit it. "He killed our parents. He... He committed other sins. So I ended his life for what he did to us."

"One day, I will forgive him for what he did," he continues. "Because I know what made him destroy himself, and I know that he thought I was the only person who could stop him. What's harder is forgiving myself for letting that happen to him."

Madara sniffs, maybe shuffles his feet. There's nervous energy in him now, and he doesn't know what to do with it. 

"I thought you said you weren't a priest."

Sasuke shrugs. 

"I'm not, but wise words are wise words if they come from priests or if they come from parrots."

Madara snorts at that. Sasuke chances a smirk. His aunt Kirin had said that. Akane had always rolled her eyes when she did. 

"Love is the only thing that can make peace last," Sasuke says. He can feel the moment the last of the funeral flames go out. Can feel the acolytes of the temple wait until the embers soften into nothing before they come with their urns and their little brushes and shovels to collect the ashes. 

"Not fear," he says. "Not deterrents. The clan survives because it is a family. Because we are a family. That is how peace in the compound stays in tact, because we love one another."

"You'll be hard pressed to find an Uchiha who wants to treat a Senju like a brother."

"What about an Uzumaki?"

Madara stiffens and says nothing. Sasuke doesn't push. He knows the Uchiha. If he doesn't get through to Madara, Nadeshiko will. And if she doesn't, then she'll get through to Izuna. History said he was the more harmonious brother, the one more ready to listen and to understand. That is, until he was on his deathbed. 

Izuna being saved by someone adjacent to the Senju was going to do wonders for the history books if it hadn't already. 

"They're ready for you, Madara-sama," Sasuke says. 

Madara hums, nods his head and takes a step forward. The last of the embers die into nothing and slowly, the acolytes in their white and red begin clearing the ashes into urns. Sasuke leaves them to their work and has the grace to pretend he doesn't feel Madara's eyes on his back as he disappears inside the temple. 

* * *

Things don't change quickly, but peace talks do ensue. They pull Madara and Izuna away from the compound along with contingents of other well read Uchiha. Before they go, Madara pulls Nadeshiko into the main house on the clan compound. She goes there often in those early days of peace talks and returns home to the temple with cheeks flushed with excitement.

"He wants to legitimize me," she says to Sasuke, her black eyes bright with joy. "He wants to leave Izuna as his heir, so Izuna is going to do it, so I'll be his. I'll be third in line to lead the clan. I won't be a bastard anymore! They want to do it before I'm married, so Tohru will be an Uchiha, too."

Her expression is so unguarded, so excited. Sasuke can't help but be happy for her. The Nadeshiko that gave birth to Emi got to her position by virtue of being the last woman standing. Now, she has been chosen. Has been asked to join back into a family that flimsy politics had excluded her from. 

While she is away and while he is not watched, Sasuke goes out into the wilderness. He leaves a clone behind and sets him to work on Sasuke's own daily tasks. He drags himself into a pocket dimension, his Rinnegan already tugging at his reserves. 

The clone seems like a waste, but it was a necessary one. When he summons the Gedō statue to the pocket dimension, Sasuke is sure that this will take the seven days and seven nights that Amaterasu's flames can continuously burn. 

If anything could destroy the husk, it was his goddess. It would be nice to have Sakura there; her Amaterasu would be a great help. But Sasuke doesn't have her. She's probably busy seeing to the war on her end of the conflict. 

So Sasuke takes care of it himself. 

The statue floats in the nowhere he has transported them both to, and Sasuke sits down in lotus. He keeps his Sharingan eye open and forms the tiger seal. 

Then, he burns Kaguya's last shot at world domination. 

* * *

He ought to be dog tired. But he isn't. Amaterasu is the flame. She is the holy fire. Sasuke is only the fan, there to feed her, to help her do her heavenly work on earth. 

When he is finished, he goes home. 

* * *

"Wake up, Ninigi," Nadeshiko whispers, nudging at him. 

Sasuke comes awake slowly, sees his great-great-great grandmother standing above him. She doesn't look worried, more fond than anything else. 

He doesn't remember switching places with his clone. Autopilot was interesting like that. The husk of the Gedō statue had burned into nothing, and when Amaterasu's black flames had nothing left to eat, they disappeared when Sasuke shut his red eye. 

He isn't sure how he managed to out of the pocket dimension, to dispel his clone, and then to get into his bedroll. Maybe it was a miracle. Sasuke finds he's believing in those more and more these days. Miracles and other wonderful, inexplicable things like them.

"Not a god," he grumbles. 

Nadeshiko laughs lightly and gives him a stronger shove, though her touch is still light. 

"Don't you remember what day it is? The Uzumaki are coming to introduce their gods."

Sasuke furrows his brow. His clone's memories come back to him in a steady stream; the peace talks advancing, the valley where the village will be built, the silliness of the portraits that had been commissioned for the occasion, the new alliances, the peace treaties, and the packing that had already begun.  

"I don't need to be there for that," he says, rolling over onto his shoulder. A light headache is blooming behind his eyes and he can tell he's lucky he isn't weeping blood. He never used Amaterasu like that before, for such a long period of time. 

"Oh, but you do," Nadeshiko replies. "I'm Izuna's heir and you're my ward, which basically makes you my son, and I'm almost a priestess, so I've got to be there. So you've got to be there."

"I'm definitely not almost your son."

"Yeah," she returns. "If you were, you'd be way more obedient."

She gets to her feet, then nudges his shoulder with her toe. 

"C'mon, Itachi," she says. "They'll be here by noon."

She only leaves when he sits up and after that, there's no point in going back to sleep even though he's dog tired. She'll only come back and bother him again. So he rises and he bathes and he dresses himself and he plucks up his cane and he binds his eyes. There's time for a small bowl of miso soup and an onigiri before noon arrives, and he's suddenly grateful Nadeshiko didn't wake him up earlier than she had to. He's barely on time as it is. 

Still, he takes his time finding her, and she's already prepared with the others at the shrine. Madara and Izuna are there, presumably dressed in their best. Sasuke can't tell because he can't see, but he knows Nadeshiko picked out his clothes and they're definitely fancier than what he usually wears. 

They wait there while other Uchiha welcome the Uzumaki contingent into the compound. They come dressed in the bright oranges and reds and blues of their homeland, playing sweet sounding music on flutes and bells as they announce their arrival. 

He recognizes a handful of chakra signatures as ones he's encountered before. When he had found Sakura, a couple of those signatures had followed him when they left together. Uzumaki Mito herself and the rest of her personal guard must be here. Them and - 

Sasuke breathes. He forces himself to. His grip tightens imperceptibly on his walking stick. Nadeshiko notices and presses a kind palm on his shoulder to calm him. It doesn't work. 

Because even though Sasuke has somehow built a home among his forebearers, there is only one person in this life that will ever be family to him. And she's here. 

It's so difficult to pay attention to the pomp and circumstance that he doesn't. He can feel Kurama's chakra in the seal on Sakura's forehead, can feel Sakura's own thrumming, soft-fierce-comforting-terrifying energy not very far away at all. 

He hopes she recognizes him. Hopes she feels him. 

It doesn't take him long to find out of she does. 

The ceremony ends and the gods of Uzushio and of the Uchiha are familiar with one another. There is chatter about the Uzushio fire goddess Nobi, and how she will get along with Amaterasu. Sasuke ignores it. He can feel her approaching. 

He turns and abandons his post, muttering to Nadeshiko some excuse about his headache. She lets him go, if only because she remembers how tired he had been when he first woke up. Sasuke was already an early riser before he settled into the temple schedule. Him sleeping until noon was unheard of. 

But Sasuke walks past the temple, out to the green fields of sharp grass behind it. And it's there, finally there, that Sakura finds her freedom. He rips off the bindings on his eyes, and finds his too.

She smacks him in the face, then drags him in close. Sasuke wraps his arms around her and holds her with all he has. The sting on his cheek is nothing compared to having her in his arms again. Her anger at his return is nothing compared to her relief. 

"I don't _understand_ ," she sobs.

"Hagoromo's a fucking bastard," he replies.

Sakura lets out a wet laugh and she squeezes him tighter, tighter still. 

"You ended it on your end," Sasuke says, pressing his cheek to the side of her head. Her pink hair smells clean and fresh, not like how she was when they were running together, killing White Zetsus and tracking down Black Zetsu. "And I ended it on mine."

She looks up at him, her green eye bright. She's finally got a reasonable looking eyepatch, dark blue comfortable looking. She resembles Kakashi more than ever and it makes something clench in Sasuke's gut. 

"The tablet?" she asks. "The statue?" 

"Gone."

Her lower lip wobbles, like she can't believe it's over. Because it is over. There's nothing more for them to do here in terms of their past. 

But there is still so much work to do for the future of this time. 

"But your chakra," Sakura says, stuck. "You - it's different. All of it. Your body - Sasuke, I burned you. I buried you." 

"Hagoromo likes to play god," he replies. "But it won't be all bad." 

"Optimism?" Sakura balks through her tears. "That's new." 

Sasuke snorts and pinches Sakura's sides. It makes her jump; she's always been ticklish. 

"He'll send us back when it's time."

Her brows dip down and Sasuke explains. How he died, how he came back, and Hagoromo's promise on the other side. The future they were allowed to inherit if they did enough things right. 

Naruto on the other side. In the Pure Land. Already living that lifetime. The promise of their first mission to Uzushio. A reunion. One already witnessed. One already happening. 

"We're gonna go back," Sakura breathes. 

Sasuke nods and this time when the tears come, he doesn't stop them. 

"Yeah," he says. "Yeah, we are."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the ōkami character amaterasu is so gd cool i just had to use it ok i just had to especially because kaguya's a rabbit goddes like cmon y'all it was absolutely necessary.
> 
> alternative chapter to this chapter is: sasuke gets shit DONE. there is still so much left to wrap up in the last two chapters that i couldn't spare any time with sasuke's adventures in uchiha land. sasuke's rinnegan being able to make pocket dimensions/travel through them is a boruto thing that i recently learned. and even though i dont like boruto, this is fanfiction and i can do what i want. 
> 
> are y'all ready for this fic to be nearly over because i'm not lmao


	19. Chapter 19

Tsubaki mumbles to herself in her sleep. When she thinks Mito is off to dreaming after she's told her stories of Tsunade-hime or Naruto the Brave, she talks to herself. Birthdays. She tells herself birthdays. Names and months and days. There are no years tacked onto the end.

Gai, Gaara, Shino, Inoichi-jiji, Obito, Tenten, Hanabi, Udon, Hana, Chouza, Chouji, Kankuro, Iruka-sensei, Moegi, Kurenai-sensei, Karin, Neji, Kiba, Akamaru, Shikaku, Genma, Kotetsu, Sasuke, Tsunade, Tsume, Yamato, Temari, Raidou, Shibi, Kakashi-sensei, Shikamaru, Ino, Naruto, Asuma-sensei, Anko, Shizune, Sai, Lee, Hinata, and Konohamaru. 

Even in her sleep, which can only be called a soldier's sleep for how light it is, Tsubaki murmurs them. When she comes to the end of the list, she starts again and repeats it. Murmuring it under her breath. 

January first. January nineteenth. January twenty-third. January twenty-fourth. February tenth. March ninth. March twenty-seventh. April third. April thirteenth. April twenty-second. May first. May fifteenth. May twenty-sixth. June eighth. June eleventh. June twentieth. July third. July seventh. July fifteenth. July seventeenth. July twenty-first. July twenty-third. August second.

August eighth. August tenth. August twenty-third. August twenty-eighth. September seventh. September fifteenth. September twenty-second. September twenty-third. October tenth. October eighteenth. October twenty-fourth. November eighteenth. November twenty-fifth. November twenty-seventh. December twenty-seventh. December thirtieth. 

They roll on. Some of them are only names, and no birthdays. 

Sometimes she has nightmares. Ones so fierce that Mito fears rousing her from her rest. She makes fists in her sleep, Tsubaki does, and cuts the meat of her palms with how tightly she balls up her hands. 

She rarely screams, or cries out. She suffers in silence, her eyes screwed shut. If Mito did not stay awake long after the stories on her palm were told, she is sure she would not know. Tsubaki would never admit such a weakness. 

Yashiro would not either. Mito tries not to let that knowledge wither something inside of her. 

She does her best to encourage other things to occupy Tsubaki's mind. She keeps her handmaiden at her side in the meetings with the clans. Tsubaki is a shrewd presence at her back. Almost insstinctively, she knows how to communicate with the blunt Nara Shikaro and how to keep a cool head when Shimura Tetsuya edges around insulting her. 

"You're better at this than I expected you to be," Mito says, a light smile on her lips as Tsubaki waves the Aburame clan head off to bother Hashirama. 

Tsubaki shrugs and chalks it up to being a people person. 

Mito doesn't like how long it takes, to convince Tsubaki to feel comfortable again. She knows it isn't possible to fix what has happened to her in one day, but her stomach churns when Tsubaki is slower to laughter, when her eyes stay downcast even as a joke is told. 

Some days are better than others. Sometimes, Tsubaki reaches for her. Not to hold her close or to capture her hand, but just to reassure herself that Mito is there. Light, casual touches on the arm, the back, the ankle, or the wrist; they all add up. Tsubaki rarely kisses Mito, even in private. She prefers to take Mito's hand, to press her lips in a closed kiss to her palm and curl Mito's fingers around it, smiling at her through her pink bangs. 

There's little time for more intimacy than that. As days go on, Mito is called out to clan meetings as often, if not more often than her husband is. Madara is a cheerful thorn in her side; he's a great fan of teasing her, or needling her. He was charming in that snappish way of his and Mito could see quite easily why Tobirama was so foolish with him. 

Tsubaki was just as invaluable. She had been called upon to teach that healing ninjutsu of hers, a technique she called the Mystic Palm. Her knowledge of the human body and its systems rivaled that of the Hyūga, who were just as surprised and offended as they were interested when she made quick work of revising their maps of the tenketsu system. 

Her knowledge is invaluable, precisely because no one else has it, or can even come close to her mastery of the subject matter. Even Mito's slim Byakugō on her collarbones these many months later could nowhere near match the amassed power of Tsubaki's. The Nobi girl was a perfect commodity, just by virtue of being the only person living or dead with knowledge of medicine as in depth as hers was. 

It nearly makes Tobirama lose his head when Tsubaki threatens his academy. 

Mito knows she shouldn't be laughing. She _knows_ she shouldn't. But it's difficult. She hasn't been able to look at Tobirama for weeks now without feeling the still frosty air between them. But he rather looks like a puffed up housecat, the fur of his collar white and stark against the obvious displeasure on his face. 

"Fifteen," Tsubaki says, her arms folded across her chest. 

The more interested representatives of each clan have assembled under the gazebo Hashirama had made for them. Nara Shikaro looks like she's about a moment away from cackling herself. 

"Three years doesn't make much of a difference," Tobirama argues, visibly bristling. 

But Tsubaki doesn't budge. 

"Fifteen, or no medical school." 

"Everyone in this room," Madara says, chin on his hand, "was trained starting younger than that. I started at six. Twelve is plenty old. Fifteen is practically ancient."

Mito lifts an eyebrow, only vaguely surprised at the show of solidarity between the two. 

Tsubaki looks on the two of them witheringly, drumming her fingers on the meat of her arm. 

"And look how well that turned out," she snipes, "throwing six years olds into a war definitely helped bring the war to an end. I commend the parenting skills of the late Senju-sama and Uchiha-sama."

It's enough to raise the hackles of everyone in the room. Even Mito thinks that Tsubaki is asking for an awful lot. 

Tobirama had suggested twelve as the academy and military entrance age because it was by and far the oldest anyone  _in that room_ had joined the fighting, or had begun their own training in case their families were ever drawn into the Uchiha-Senju conflict. 

By all means, Madara was right. Fifteen was ancient. People were considering marriage contracts at fifteen, young women giving birth by eighteen or nineteen so they could rejoin the military only a year later. 

But Tsubaki had made herself abundantly clear. If the age wasn't moved to fifteen, she would keep her knowledge of the medicinal arts out of Tobirama's school, and thus out of his hands. She'd teach the medicinal arts to those  _she_ saw fit, at her own discretion. Which, knowing Tsubaki, meant that she'd only have maybe one or two students at a time. 

Private apprenticeships meant no standardized curriculum, which meant no way to know for sure when there would be enough medics to go around. It meant any fighting with external enemies would be ground to a halt, not to mention the construction of the village itself would take several more weeks, or even months than originally anticipated. 

Hashirama was already doing his damndest, rearranging the forests around the valley. The actual building was going to take time and craftsmen and carpenters, and with that came the threat of injury. It wasn't as if they couldn't do it without ready medics, but only having one as talented as Tsubaki was a terrible inconvenience. Of course there were others among the Hyūga and the Nara, and even among the Uzushio shinobi and the Senju. But none of them could heal like Tsubaki could. 

Which meant they needed to come to an agreement. And fast. 

"Young shinobi are more than mature enough to enter the academy - ," Shimura Tetsuya begins. 

"The human brain hasn't fully developed until reaching the age of twenty-five," Tsubaki says, holding the room rather like Mito does when she knows she's being listened to at the expense of all others. "You want to teach someone whose head is still soft how to take a life?"

"We all did."

Tsubaki's eyes narrow, and Mito is abruptly reminded that Tsubaki had even less of a choice than the people assembled did. That as a clanless child in the wilderness, she probably didn't even have the comfort of a roof over her head most nights. That the meager creature comforts of a hearth fire, of ready food, of  _comrades_ and  _companions_ had been luxuries for Tsubaki. 

Of course she didn't want children fighting any more. She had lost everything to the war, and she hadn't even really been a participant in it. 

"And you shouldn't have had to," Tsubaki says, voice hard and honest. 

It causes a measure of silence to fall over the room. Because that much, all of them agreed with. It was why Hashirama and Madara had become friends in the first place; to prevent more children from dying in the war. They shouldn't have had to fight in a grown-up's war. None of them should've had to. 

The tragedy of it, was that by now, all of them saw a twelve year old child as an adult. Hikaru, Tsubaki's little brother was fourteen and a shinobi by the laws of Uzushio. A grown man. But even to Mito, he was only a kid. She wouldn't throw him into a warzone even if she had to. 

But the people of Fire Country had, because they had to. 

"Fifteen," Tsubaki says again, "as the earliest age a person can enter the academy. Nineteen as the graduation age, with no penalties for dropping out."

She looks around the room, well aware that it's entirely with her but is against her as well. 

"Training children from a younger age will be left to the discretion of the clans," she continues, "but during times of peace, training children under the age of ten is illegal. In times of war, that restriction is lifted."

People shuffle in their seats, uncomfortable. Nara Shikaro's face goes pensive. Aburame Shinki rubs his chin.  

"Thirteen," a Sarutobi offers, ever diplomatically. "Make thirteen the entrance age, so that seventeen is the graduation age." 

Tsubaki shakes her head. 

"I won't go under fifteen."

Shikaro adjusts herself in her seat, and tilts her cheek onto her shoulder. 

"Fifteen as the entrance age," she concedes, "but eighteen for graduation. Clan children won't need as much education as others."

Tsubaki lifts an eyebrow. 

"And where will clanless shinobi get their education, if they only get three years in the academy as the clan children do?"

"A primary academy," Shikaro suggests. 

"And how old will they be when they start?" Tsubaki asks. 

Shikaro hums and rubs her forehead. 

"Fourteen," she offers. 

Sarutobi Sasuke shakes his head. 

"A year of primary training won't make up for nearly a lifetime of training for clan children," he insists. "We'd be doing a disservice to clanless shinobi."

Inuzuka Aiko rubs at the clan marking on her cheek, her bushy red wolf-dog resting his head neatly on his paws.

"Leave the entrance age at fifteen," she grumbles. "Sending pups in to fight only brings home dead children. Keep the clanless on until they reach nineteen while the clan shinobi join the military. Attach the clanless with higher ranked masters."

"An apprenticeship program?" Tsubaki asks. 

Aiko nods. She's the youngest clan head there, only eighteen, but the Inuzuka had seen younger clan heads if the history that Mito had been told was to be believed.

"It'll make that Will of Fire of yours easier to grab, won't it?" she asks. "Builds relationships between clanless shinobi and other clanless shinobi, or clan shinobi with the clanless."

"So," Mito interrupts, smoothing down the white skirt of her kimono. "Students will enter the academy at fifteen. At the conclusion of their second year, at seventeen, they'll be assigned to three man squads that will take noncombatant missions inside and outside of the village until graduation. They'll continue their academy education during the academic year, while during summer vacations and for special occasions, with their teachers, they'll be allowed to take missions."

Tsubaki nods firmly. That much they had been able to suss out, even though the ages were still up for debate in the room. 

"There will be an option to take an entire year off the academy education in favor of those excursions," Shinki offers. 

"But," Tobirama adds, as though he's coming around, "at least three years of the academy program must be completed before graduation."

 "And under  _no circumstances_ ," Tsubaki says severely, "are any children under the legal age to be accelerated through the program. We will have no more soldiers with milk on their breath for battle fodder."

"They can take extra classes maybe," Aiko adds diplomatically. "Or take on apprenticeships. But no early graduations." 

"Except in times of war," Sarutobi Sasuke says, rubbing his chin. "In which case, some of these restrictions are lifted?"

"I think," Akimichi Choujinki says, his soft voice demanding a measure of quiet, "we can all agree that even in future times of distress, we will not allow children as young as we were to go to the battlefront. After all, that is why Senju-san and Uchiha-san decided to end the war as boys."

He looks around at those assembled, his hands resting tidily on top of his stomach. He's forgone his armor, a bold statement to the combat ready others at the meeting. Choujinki's long brown hair is pulled back in a low tail like Izuna's, the rosy swirls of the clan markings on his cheeks making him look distinctly approachable. 

"It is what we all dreamed of as children, isn't it?" he asks. He turns his face to look each clan representative in the eye until his gaze finally rests on Tsubaki. "Nobi-san here is only reminding us of what we all want, but had given up on wanting. Her terms do not seem so excessive, when they mean achieving the dreams of a generation, do they?"

Beside him, Nara Shikaro leans back into her seat and snickers into her fist. Even Tobirama looks somewhat chastised. The usual bite in Madara's face has calmed into nothing. 

Mito looks at Akimichi Choujinki, her gaze several times more assessing. It would be good to marry one of her maidens into that family, or any of her shinobi. Even if Choujinki was already married, affirming an alliance between the Akimichi and the Uzumaki was just good politics. 

Mito could hold a room in ice; Choujinki could hold them in tenderness. 

"I think we've been given a great deal to think about," Sarutobi Sasuke says, face pinched in a way that spoke of deep thought. "I'm sure we must all reconvene with our clan heads with the decisions we have or have not made. In two days' time, we ought to have definitive decisions."

Tsubaki sighs heavily through her nose, but gives one curt nod of her head. As if she were the one who called this meeting to order, rather than the one who threw it into disarray in the first place. 

Mito hides her smile behind her palm. 

"Then we'll break for lunch," Tsubaki says. "Thank you all very much for your hard work."

The others make similar noises of assent and rise to crack their backs or meander to their allies before heading off for food. Tobirama still looks like he's caught between pouting and fuming, until Madara flicks the side of his head. Then he's positively fuming, but the Uchiha manages to get him to his feet and towards where the Akimichi have generously provided the day's provisions. 

"You're ruthless with them," Mito murmurs once everyone is just out of hearing distance. 

Tsubaki snorts, but relaxes minutely. 

"I won't budge on this," she replies, looking out at the mass of assembled clans and small families that have come together. "You can convince me on lots of other things. But not this."

Mito lets the silence happen, lets Tsubaki breathe against whatever demon is grabbing at her. She stands erect, doesn't give an inch. And Mito can only wonder what it took for Tsubaki to stand that way, even with the weight of her past so heavy on her shoulders. 

Mito reaches out, just barely brushes her fingers against the uncovered skin of Tsubaki's wrist. A half smile glances over her face, and Tsubaki turns to look at her, all the fondness in the world laid bare in the sheer openness of her face. 

"They're our future," Tsubaki says. "They're the best hope we've got. We have to protect them."

* * *

 "Mama!" 

Bare feet slap rough against the golden sand, and Minako turns her head away from the tide's tongue lapping at the beach. She lifts an eyebrow at Hikaru, his sandaled feet pelting against the ground, kicking up sand as he runs. 

"Mama?" she asks, mirth on her lips. "You only call me that when you're in trouble."

Hikaru doesn't do so much as narrow his eyes. When he's upon her, he drops his hands to his knees to catch his breath. Minako snorts at him and gives him a once over. He's clutching something fast in his hand. 

"Did you run all the way here?" she asks. "You shouldn't be out of breath. Why didn't you take the rooftops?" 

"I'm - ," he sucks in a lungful of air before standing up straight and shoving the piece of paper in her face. "This!"

Minako takes it gingerly from his grip. It's crumpled, but the feel of it alone under her hand tells Minako it's something gravely important. 

"Are you actually in trouble?" she asks, eyes narrowed.

She doesn't believe for a second that Hikaru's somehow managed to get himself into something he can't get himself out of. But he hadn't called her 'mama' since he was twelve and decided that the law was right and that he was a grown man. He only let himself do it now when he was sick or in trouble, both of which were rare enough occasions. 

"No," Hikaru wheezes, his own bright eyes clearly annoyed with her. "But your secondborn - ,"

"Secondborn?" she asks. "I don't have a - ,"

Minako blinks, then realization hits her in the face. 

Tsubaki. 

She unfurls the paper, not even bothering with the flush of instinctive annoyance that comes with recognizing that Hikaru already opened and read the damned thing before bringing it to her. 

"What is it?!" Nanami barks from some distance. 

Minako looks up at her old friend and fellow clan head, her trousers pulled up to her knees as she looks for seashells in the shallows, the basket at her hip bouncing there as she walks. 

"What's the matter? You look like you've seen a ghost!" 

Minako swallows the lump in her throat. Now, she very much understands why Hikaru didn't bother taking the quick route via rooftop, why he  _ran_ for the beach instead. 

"It's a marriage proposal!" Minako bellows. 

Nanami lifts a hand to her eyes, blocking out the aggressive overcast light. 

"For you?" her old friend asks, in good humor. 

"Worse!" Minako bellows, a hysterical laugh bubbling in her throat. "For Tsubaki! From the _Uchiha_!"

* * *

"It makes a lot of sense," Sakura says, kicking her heels from her seat on the porch of the temple. "In a really roundabout way."

Sasuke snorts, peeling potatoes. 

"I always did think you and I were gonna get married," she muses, twirling a toothpick in her hand. "Y'know. Back when I didn't know what lesbians were."

Sasuke rolls his eyes from behind their white binding and stays on his task. 

"With the stunt we pulled, I'm almost surprised they didn't slap the two of us together."

Sakura shrugs a shoulder, her bare feet touching the grass. The seasons would be changing, soon. It had been early spring when she first landed on Uzushio, though the climate there could fool anyone. Fall would be upon them soon, and then winter. They had to get a good harvest in, and get as much of the village built as possible before that first winter set in. The work was coming on fast. 

"Yeah," Sakura snorts. "Like that would've worked out."

Losing and finding Sasuke again had been more than what she had expected. It reminded her that at this point, expecting anything was as good as telling the universe to give her the opposite. 

Suffice to say, introducing the gods of Uzushio to the gods of the Uchiha had gone splendidly. Mito was terrifying enough on her own, much less with Madara at her side. The two of them were more alike than anyone was willing to admit, and they got along better than expected. 

What no one had actually expected  _at all_ was for 'Tsubaki' to go flying into the arms of a blind acolyte in Amaterasu's temple. 

Sakura had been followed, naturally. And acolytes in the temple had been watching, naturally. But between the two of them, Sakura and Sasuke were the best liar this side of the space-time continuum. 

"An old friend," 'Tsubaki' had said, tears still in her eyes when asked by a fellow handmaiden. "I knew him when I was younger. We got separated at one point. I thought he had died."

"An old friend," 'Itachi' had said, an absent smile on his face when asked by his fellow acolytes. "She healed me when I was ill, and we traveled together for some time. We got separated. I thought she had died."

A happy reunion between two orphans thrown together then shoved apart in war-time. 'Tsubaki's allies left a wary eye on her, many of them knowing about her old connections to the Uchiha. All of 'Itachi's allies left him be. All but one. 

Nadeshiko looked at 'Tsubaki' with an appraising eye. 

"Is this another thing you'll only tell me half the truth about, Ninigi?" she asked, not even bothering to look at Sasuke as she asked the question, her coal grey eyes still trained on Sakura. 

Sasuke grunted; neither a yes or a no. Nadeshiko humphed and nodded her head brusquely. 

"You're invited to my wedding then," she said firmly. "Itachi doesn't have anyone to sit with. I hope you don't mind spicy food. The Uchiha love it."

And that had been the end of that. Sakura had looked at Sasuke, an eyebrow raised. 

"Ninigi?" 

Sasuke pinched the bridge of his nose. 

"Let's not talk about it."

Though the idea that there was at least one person in this timeline that knew the truth, or even some of the truth about Sasuke made Sakura's stomach hurt, she couldn't bring herself to do anything excessive about it. She trusted Sasuke's judgement for one, and for another, he was going to be living with the Uchiha and he could keep an eye on her. 

"She's my grandma," Sasuke had muttered. "It's not like I can traumatize her. I might not get _born_."

"We already might not get born," Sakura replied, rolling her eyes. 

They already knew that they would be born. That the Sage had made his promise, and that if he was anything, Ōtsutsuki Hagoromo was a man of his word. But it was funny, so they let it be. 

Almost, but not quite as funny as Sakura marrying into the Uchiha. 

"Izuna's nice enough."

"He's my uncle." 

"And soon," Sakura says, reaching out to punch his shoulder, "I'll be your aunt."

A wicked little smile crosses her face, and she tugs him in by his sleeve. Sasuke's knife doesn't so much as stutter against the new potato he's peeling. 

"That means _I'll_ be in charge of _you_."

"It really doesn't."

Sakura snickers, and she blithely ignores the upwards quirk of the corner of Sasuke's mouth. 

Hashirama had informed her of the Uchiha's intention of proposing a marriage contract to her weeks ago, back when she was still trying to navigate her newly blooming relationship with Mito. After Sakura had damn near tackled Sasuke on Uchiha territory, it had pretty much sealed the deal to the Uchiha. 

"I healed Izuna, I love you," Sakura muses. "It's a solid fit."

The Senju had damn near thrown a fit when they found out about the proposal. Sakura had probably laughed a little too hard. Minako, bless her heart, had received the missive the Uchiha sent and promptly showed it to Ashina back on Uzushio. Ashina had washed his hands of the affair, but not without making sure a decision in either direction wouldn't harm the newly reforged alliance between the Senju and the Uzumaki. 

The Senju had wanted her because of the whispers of her having been allied with them, before she was Nobi Tsubaki, when she was still just a girl who had forgotten her family name. Hashirama's sense of justice had spearheaded that campaign, but the Uchiha had been faster. Sakura is only half sure that Hashirama slowed down the machinations of his elders on purpose. There was a lot to do in terms of the new village. It was easy for a small thing like a marriage contract to fall by the wayside. 

Besides, it meant that she would be spending less time on the Senju compound. Sakura couldn't blame Hashirama for that. He was a good man, with a good heart, but even Sakura wouldn't want the person her wife was in love with under the same roof as her. 

"Besides," Sakura adds, "it means more Uchiha medics, which integrates the Uchiha more in the village, which means there's no segregation. Which means there's no massacre."

"Two birds," Sasuke agrees. 

Sakura nods.

"I take it you already know then," Sasuke says, voice light. "About him."

Sakura snorts at the way he dances around the subject, but she nods, eyeing the potato peel pile forming in the bowl between his knees. 

"A fool's marriage, we've assured each other."

"I owe you a great deal," Izuna had said, still in a deep bow. "But I must tell you sincerely that women hold no charms for me." 

Sakura had damn near busted a gut, she laughed so hard. Izuna had tugged her off into his private quarters for the sake of a brief conversation, and this hadn't been the one she had expected. 

Funny thing, about expectations. 

"And men hold none for me," she replied. It was worth it, to see Izuna raise his head, relief alight in every war weary bone in his body. 

"A fool's marriage," Sakura says, bumping her shoulder against Sasuke's. "Annulled when the last of his elders are dead. I'll keep my name if I want it, and I'll live here, but I'm still life-bound to Mito-sama."

Sasuke nods. 

"I'm surprised they're being so lenient," he murmurs. "That they want you anyway, despite all that."

Sakura shrugs. 

"You Uchiha," she says. "You know what family means."

It would complicate things with Mito, that was for sure. But if her pregnancy kept on at the rate that it was, then Mito would be free of her obligations towards the Senju in little under a year. She could move into her own apartments in what was going to be the Uzushio quarter of the village, only venturing into the Senju compound when necessary. 

Izuna expected no children of Sakura, and with Madara's interests in Tobirama becoming slightly more obvious by the day, it was clear that Nadeshiko was the only Uchiha of Tajima's line that would be bearing children. 

"It's more of an alliance than a marriage," Sakura muses. "But the Nobi and the Uchiha are a lot a like. With the whole, fire goddess thing. Maybe Hikaru might marry into the family for real." 

"Hikaru?" 

Sakura reaches out and flicks Sasuke's ear. She's more surprised that he allows it than that he grumbles over it. 

"My little brother, _Ninigi_ , keep up."

He rolls his eyes and dumps the cleanly peeled potato into a bowl of clean water. Then, he starts cutting them into halves, and then into fourths. Steady work for steady hands. This is what Sasuke does, instead of counting birthdays. Instead of remembering names. Sakura's glad he's found something that works. She never thought Sasuke would be the type to find god, but Sakura won't begrudge him what he has. Peeling potatoes, cutting carrots, sweeping floors; good, measured work that keeps the hands busy. What more could either of them ask for? 

"We're getting married after Nadeshiko-sama does," she continues. "Half of the Nobi will be coming for it. They're all very excited."

"I can imagine."

"It's - ," 

She stops herself. Doesn't want to say it but feels weak for not wanting to. Forces it out. 

"It's nice," she says. "To have something to look forward to."

Even something as silly as a fool's wedding. A fool's marriage. She hadn't allowed herself that much. Not since before the war, when she still thought that Kaguya could be defeated, before the last of the civilians were wiped out. Before she lost her parents and Ino and Naruto and everything else that mattered.

"I didn't think I'd have things to look forward to."

Sasuke's hands don't stop working, even through Sakura's admission. She's grateful. The rhythm he's cobbled together moors her, steadies her. She doesn't need Kurama's gentle nudge in the back of her mind to keep her on her feet. She's okay. She's  _okay._

"Surprise, obaa-san," Sasuke says. 

Sakura chokes on her laugh, it comes so sudden. She looks at Sasuke, her green eyes wide, and the smile that cracks over her face is bright and sincere as the dawn. 

"Obaa-san?" she crows. "I'm not that old!" 

"Tell that to your crows-feet, not me."

"Those are called laugh lines, you mouthy brat."

"Mouthy brat? Now you really sound ancient."

It wasn't perfect. And part of Sakura would always,  _will_ always believe that it can't ever be perfect. Because it isn't hers. Because she is an intruder here, and so is Sasuke. But there's nothing to be done about it now. Nowhere but forward to go. 

And she will struggle, because that is healing, and that is moving on. But there are things to look forward to. Her wedding. Sasuke as her clansmen, Sasuke as her brother, never to be lost again. Minako and Hikaru for covenant blood. Uzushio for a new home. Mito. Mito for herself, all that she was. 

Konoha. One that she had a hand in building, and one that she would live a new life in again. All over again. But better this time. Better because she could make it so, and she would make it so. 

Sakura breathes in, easy and deep. Some days would be easier than others. This day was already hard enough. But if she closes her eyes, she can pretend that the burning heat of Kurama in her skull was that same exuberant warmth that Naruto put off, just by being himself. She could pretend that he was there with them. And pretending could be enough. 

And if she got tired of pretending, there was enough to look forward to, all fantasies aside. 

* * *

 Village building is rapid work before the winter. 

Every able bodied member of every clan, and every small family throws their back into the work. Hashirama damn near exhausts himself carefully moving the forest, shrinking and regrowing trees in defensive lines that protect the village. He's loathe to cut down a tree to not use its bark for something useful, for lodging or for kindling. 

But many hands make large work light, and it doesn't take long before clans slowly begin to fill in the spaces that have been carved out for them. The Nara had graciously provided part of their own ancestral lands for the village, provided they were allowed to preside over them. The Nara forests are the only ones that Hashirama does not touch for fear of disrespecting the ancient, storied spirits said to dwell there. 

The Uchiha settle near a body of water they call the Naka River. The Yamanaka choose a plot near a fantastic grove of wildflowers. Some settle further north, others further south. The Hyūga prefer the land at the base of the massive cliff face that overlooks the valley, as it reminds them of their mountainous home. The Sarutobi like the drier land near the Hyūga. 

It _works._  

Faster than Hashirama ever could have expected it to, it works. Craftsmen seem to flock at the thought alone of peace, and small nomadic families that previously had no interest in the fighting are all too excited to pledge their interest in the village, to put themselves in Hashirama's hands. 

There's still talk of who will lead the village, if there should even be one person governing the entirety of it. The clan council already has a massive amount of power, but by Mito's insistence, the civilian council has an arm just as strong. There's talk of him leading the village, of him being the Hokage, named for the country of their shared nativity. 

Hashirama isn't sure. Under Mito and Tobirama's careful guidance, a system of nominations has been set up. They've decided that a combat trial ought to decide who leads the village, but so should a great deal of knowledge in statecraft and nation building. It will take more than one powerful leader to maintain the system they are trying to craft, and all of them have finally stopped looking at the next fifteen minutes and have started looking to the future. 

To grandchildren. To great-grandchildren. Despite his grumblings, Hashirama knows that his brother is belatedly glad that Tsubaki had pushed back the age of entrance to the military academy, and to the military itself. Tobirama was pragmatic to a fault, but even he, when faced with the facts of a situation, could be swayed. Losing their younger brothers had been a terrible blow to him. He had needed to be reminded that he would be allowing more younger brothers to be lost, if he had continued as their father had. 

She would have been a good match for Tobirama, Tsubaki. Just about as stubborn and probably as smart. Hashirama had not been opposed to the match. It would have given him a better excuse to keep an eye on her. Tobirama had his suspicions about her, about her covered eye, and her knowledge of Uchiha techniques. They were fantastical in Hashirama's opinion, but after she healed Izuna, Hashirama wasn't so sure. 

The Uchiha were a better place for her anyway. If Tobirama's worst suspicion turned out to be reality, bloodline theft was better dealt with privately. Sticking the Senju into that kind of Uchiha business would be enough to start a civil war in their fledgling village, and of that Hashirama was not a fan. 

The Uzumaki would be another thing to deal with entirely. Hashirama was aware that Mito would rather burn the Uchiha to the ground than let one of their hands come crossly onto Tsubaki's shoulder. She was terribly like the Uchiha in that way; protective to a fault. It would be an issue for another day if it ever came up. And Hashirama could only hope it would never come up. 

Tsubaki was an asset. Her impending marriage to Izuna gave her a lot of leeway within the Uchiha, and it showed in how Madara became the one to make demands about natural sciences and healing programs to be included in Tobirama's academy. It was clear in how Izuna approached him now, smilingly but shyly, curious about the Mokuton only inasmuch as it pleased the gods of the trees. 

Hashirama had long since forgotten the tree gods, the ones who supposedly gave the Senju the Mokuton. They were to thank for the technique, not the coincidence of blood that Uzumaki Konohako had introduced to them. The stories of those gods had been lost. Or so he had thought. 

Lost until Izuna asked about them, his black eyes soft and curious, his elbows caked with dirt as they worked side by side, learning the new land of the valley where their children would grow up and die on. 

Izuna is a funny thing, too. Hashirama is beginning to understand the appeal of loving-husbands and lawful-wives. He's sure if he ever brought up the idea to Mito, she'd be amenable. 

But for now, there's time. Much of it is busy, but there's time. And there's no rush. Hashirama isn't worried. Not until he has a reason to be. 

A howl splits open the night so hollow and loud, it can only be the death knell of a thing too powerful for this world. Hashirama is at his feet in an instant, his featherlight sleep interrupted. 

He's reaching for his sword in the same instant Tobirama is in his room, his red eyes narrowed. 

"Where?" Hashirama asks, standing quickly, and dressing himself. 

"The east," Tobirama says. "Near the Uzushio quarter."

The color drains from Hashirama's face. 

Mito still lives in the Senju compound, and so did her Handmaidens. It had been unofficially decided that when they died, or when they became more amenable to coercion, Mito would leave and live out the rest of her days with her people if she so chose. With her pregnancy progressing safely in these early days, it was safer to have her among the Senju, where Hashirama and his kinsmen could keep her safe. 

But Mito would not tolerate being away when her people were in danger. 

"How many hurt?" 

Tobirama shakes his head. 

"Can't tell. I heard the cry and came to you first." 

Hashirama nods, feels a light pang of affection for how true his brother's affection still rings even all the way through the war. 

He's dressed in an instant, a lifetime of preparing for battle with no warning lending speed to his movements. Tobirama follows him out of the door, and before long, Touka is at his side, and Ginjirou is flanking Tobirama. 

Mito and her Handmaidens are already waiting at the front door. She lifts an eye, dressed for battle. Hashirama has never seen her dressed so. She's in the dark burnished red of her hair, of her people, but the black clothing she wears beneath it marks her as a Senju. She's got a light smile on her face, her yari loose in her grip. 

"You're late," she says. 

Hashirama huffs out a light laugh. Mito's smile gets a little sharper, and she turns before taking off. 

They run in silence, all of them operating on the same amoutn of little to no information. If all Tobirama knew was that there was a howl unlike any human sound in the Uzushio quarter, then Mito and her women knew as well. 

Getting there isn't the issue. But arriving there very much is. 

The Uzushio quarter is in varying states of on fire. Mito's Handmaidens spring into action at once, not bothering to defer to their charge's lead. Mito has already left them behind to deal with the damage. Mito only presses forward, towards the heart of the destruction, Tsubaki at her side. 

"Tobirama, with me," Hashirama says. "Touka, Ginjirou, help with the evacuations. Follow their lead."

His cousins defer to his judgement, and Hashirama runs off after his bride and her loving-wife.

They have to travel into a strange thatch of forest, dark with the stink of acrid black smoke. It smells almost of sage and ozone, and burns Hashirama's eyes as he inhales it. 

Ahead of them, Mito stops abruptly and Tsubaki follows, stopping neatly at her side. Hashirama slows to a jog so he doesn't overshoot them, then stops to stare at what is laying at Mito's feet. 

At the center of the blaze is a young man, his eyes wide and confused. At his feet is a fox kit, an arrow in its flank. From the kits mouth comes the outpour of flames and sage-smoke. 

Mito looks  _livid._

"What happened here?" she demands, staring at the archer, who quivers as the dead-dying kit breathes out smoke. 

"I - There was - I don't  _know._ " 

"He's on night patrol," Tobirama says, arms folded at his chest. "He probably confused the fox for an intruder."

Mito turns on him, nearly hissing with her rage. 

"That kit was not an intruder," she snaps. " _We are_." 

Almost as if by design, another howl bellows. This one is closer to a grief sound, to a scream. 

"The Nara deer aren't the only spirits on this land," Mito says, dropping to her knees before the dead-dying fox kit. "This isn't a fox. It's a kitsune."

Hashirama sucks in a breath. Tsubaki's face goes pensive. Hashirama is not devout. Even when he tells Izuna stories that he has to pilfer from older aunties and uncles, Hashirama has not believed, has not allowed himself a measure of that strange old faith. 

But when he looks at this little fox kit, when he squints his eyes, he can see the odd swirls of flame at its feet, can see its single tail twitch, can see a nub where a second ought to be growing if it were not breathing its last. 

"Hashirama!" 

Madara bursts through the treeline, his battle fan behind him. He looks harried, like he, too, has been dragged from sleep. Izuna is just behind him, Sharingan activated and ready for a fight. 

"Our village," Hashirama begins, explaining. "We've encroached on taken territory."

Madara narrows his eyes at that, clearly confused. 

"The Uchiha can put out fires as well as we start them," Izuna says in his brother's stead. "We've brought some of our clansmen to help the Uzushio quarter."

"Thank you," Hashirama inclines his head. Then he turns back to his wife, well aware that she is the one who knows this other world he is not privy to. "What do we do about the kitsune?" 

Mito uses careful hands to snap the arrow in the flank of the kit, murmuring prayers the whole time she does it. She points a finger up as another howl claws through the night, the grief screams multiplying and multiplying. 

"Those are the screams of the kit's family," Mito murmurs. "They're calling the strongest of them to come avenge this little one. If we were at war with the spirits, it would be different. But killing young without provocation... It's an unprecedented act of violence."

Madara comes closer as Mito prays over the kit, and joins his own words in with them. 

"Who is the strongest of them?" Izuna asks. 

Almost as one, they fall to their knees. 

A wave of chakra so heavy, so thick, so purely  _malicious_ it threatens to pour Hashirama's brain out through his ears drags him to one knee, and then demands another. 

Mito lets out a shocked sound, a whimper, and Hashirama reaches out for her. He catches her arm, and she holds onto him, digs her fingernails into the exposed skin of his hand to steady herself. Madara holds her up by her shoulder, still praying through gritted teeth. Tsubaki and Tobirama are the only ones who look up, shock and awe on both their faces. 

"The Kyuubi," Tobirama breathes. 

"Kurama," Tsubaki whispers. 

Above them is a creature made of nightmares. A horror story told to children who misbehave. A thing that does not exist, but does exist, in stories, according to madmen desperate for power, or wizened old women, who know how the world was made and how it would end. 

_When the world was new, there were nine tailed beasts..._

"Fuck," Hashirama says. 

"Exactly," Mito grits out. 

"He thinks we're a threat," Tsubaki surmises. "We have to let him know it was an accident."

"How on earth are we - ,"

But before Madara can finish his question, Tsubaki is off, running, peeling across the forest in flames to meet the demon head on. Izuna is after her in an instant, staggering to his feet under the weight of the creature's killing intent, trying to protect his wife. 

Hashirama and his brother follow, gathering themselves. Hashirama looks over his shoulder at his own wife, at his best friend, and says, "Take care of her." 

Madara stares at him, his jaw locked against the force of the nine tailed fox's anger. 

"She can take care of herself," he says. But he doesn't make a move to rise and join them. " _Go._ " 

Hashirama doesn't need to be told twice. Tobirama grabs onto his arm, holds up his fingers to activate his Hiraishin. 

"You don't know where we're going," Hashirama begins. 

"I have tags on all of you," Tobirama replies, shrugging. 

Hashirama doesn't get a chance to chastise him before they're being spirted away. 

* * *

Kurama says, "It's now or never," and Sakura knows an in when one is presented to her. 

She doesn't fall when she feels his chakra because she knows it like she knows anything else. She raises her head to see him because in this form, he's as welcome a sight as seeing Sasuke. She cuts her eyes to look at Tobirama, and can guess why he's looking up, too. 

He doesn't trust her. And whatever Tsubaki's staring at, is probably something he should be paying attention to as well. 

But Kurama is in her head and Sakura could give a shit what Tobirama thinks of her. Here is the last piece of the past that she can slot back into place, and she has to do it now, fast and alone. Before she runs out of the little time that she has. 

_"You sure you're ready to lose me rustling around in your head?"_

Sakura snorts. 

"Believe me," she murmurs under her breath. "You aren't even close to the weirdest thing I've had in my head."

Kurama chuckles, drumming his long claws on the barren field in her mind. 

_"I believe that."_

She runs hard for the Kyuubi, activates her Byakugō to supplement the chakra she has to put out so she gets there before anyone else does. The Uchiha are damnably fast, and Izuna is hot on her tail. If she isn't careful, he'll catch up to her before long, and Sakura isn't sure of what she'll do if he catches her chatting with a demon. 

 _"He won't remember you like this,"_ Kurama says.  _"Everything about me that remembers you is inside of me. You'll have to hold him still for a second."_

Sakura rolls her eyes; of course he'd say that kind of thing like it would be easy. Sakura wasn't Naruto; she couldn't just talk a being made entirely out of chakra out of razing a village to the ground for accidentally killing one of his brethren. Or kids. Or whatever. 

"How the fuck am I supposed to do that?" 

_"You have a Sharingan, don't you?"_

Sakura sucks her teeth, hard. That wasn't exactly a pleasant thought, especially not with an Uchiha on her tail and with two Senju just behind. But if she didn't do it now, she wasn't sure when her next opportunity would come. How on earth would she free Kurama if she couldn't find every part of him? 

"You're gonna get me killed," Sakura groans. 

 _"If you go, I go,"_ Kurama rumbles.  _"Believe me, I'm not in the mood to die again."_

Sakura rolls her eyes and rears back her fist. She's coming in hot on one of the nine tail's legs, and when she gets close enough, she slams her fist in. The beast's coarse fur is heavy with its intent to kill, and it'd flay the skin off Sakura's knuckles if her seal weren't activated. As it stands, it serves as enough of a distraction to make the beast turn its face down. 

And that's all Sakura really needs. 

She jumps _hard_ , so hard she leaves a crater in the ground where she lifts off. She rips the patch covering Obito's eye off her face, and her Sharingan, always hungry, always wanting sinks its teeth into her chakra and  _pulls._

The Kurama from this world stares down at Sakura's bright red eye, and stills. When it does, Sakura takes her chance. She lets out a breath, and tugs at the chakra on her forehead. At the last little gift that Naruto had given her before he died. Before he sent her back so that she could fix it. 

And when she lets Kurama's chakra pour into this world, lets the bright red force of it slip out of her body, Sakura can  _swear_ she almost feels something cool. Something sweet. Something that feels like sunshine, and smells like boy and musk and miso. 

It makes her shut her eyes. 

"Goodbye," Sakura whispers. And she falls.

The tears come. She was always a crybaby. But Naruto always forgave her for it. 

_"Goodbye."_

She can't quite tell who says it.

* * *

Tsubaki falls out of the sky, and Mito's heart plummets with her.

The Kyuubi above them is shaking its massive head, whining low in its throat. Its in pain. Something Tsubaki did must have confused it, or angered it.

"What did she do?" Madara bellows. 

But Hashirama doesn't have an answer. He's already activated his Mokuton, and massive mounds of wood are raising themselves from the earth to cage the beast. Tobirama makes a movement to jump, to catch Tsubaki and pull her out of danger, but Izuna is already there, catching her, and whisking her away.

"Hashirama!" Mito shouts, her eyes on the great spirit come alive. "Stop!" 

He hesitates, but listens to her. Even as Tobirama balks at his brother, even as Madara curses Mito and whatever ridiculous gods she prays to on Uzushio. 

Mito is a lot of things. A fool is not one of them. But a devout woman, she is. Spirits as grand as the Kyuubi did not take such killings lightly. An apology had to be made. But Tsubaki had moved too quickly, had gotten used to the beast's presence before any of the rest of them had been able to. She had done something, but what Mito could not tell. 

But Mito was an Uzumaki. An apology needed to be made. 

"Hold this," she says to Madara, handing him her spear. "I'll only be a moment."

Madara looks at her like she's actually lost her mind, and Mito is fairly sure she has. The last recorded contact that any human being had with a spirit like the Kyuubi was when Uzumaki Masayo had led her people in fighting a hurricane. 

The Kyuubi was not a god, but it was the closest that Mito had ever come to. And hopefully, the closest she would ever get. 

She walks forward, taking every cautious step that she can. Hashirama doesn't move from his spot, prepared to cage the beast if he must. Madara holds her spear. Tobirama looks on, seemingly caught between getting Tsubaki and Izuna away to where a medic can see to Tsubaki's wounds and getting Mito out of the way of the rampaging beast. 

Then, the ocean swells in Mito's ears. She can't hear anything over its song. A song that lulled her to sleep as a baby. That soothed her when she lost her brother. A sound that she sorely missed in this landlocked nation. The song that her unborn children hear in her womb. A song that Mito knows as well as she knows the blood in her veins, the hair on her head. 

She walks on, and the Kyuubi crumbles, in agony from whatever Tsubaki had done to it. It crouches low, presses its nose to its paws. Mito, armor clad and weaponless as she is, drops to her knees and bows so low her forehead is in the dirt. 

Its hot breath bellows over her, warming her to extreme discomfort but still Mito stays. She bows as the beast whimpers, whines in pain, until it snuffles, swallows. She waits while the beast breathes through its agony. And when it calms, she speaks. 

"We have laid claim to the territory of your children. We have displaced and injured them. We have taken the life of one of your young. By all means, a bloodletting is within your rights. Our ignorance is no excuse."

The beast's breath softens, but doesn't cool. Its breath becomes measured, calm. Mito doesn't have to open her eyes to know its eyes are upon her, examining her. Combing her for weakness. 

"I humbly offer myself as tribute," Mito says. "And as promise, that such an act of aggression will never occur again."

There were stories. Only stories, if the Senju were to be believed. But the Uzumaki, and the Uchiha, the Nara, too. They were superstitious. They put stock in legend. In myth. 

Summons were spirits once, or were the children of spirits. Their taking of human blood to form contracts had changed them, but they were beings of other worlds all the same. The crocodile contract waiting for Mito back on Uzushio was a testament to that, the old crock Genji in his wetland home, surrounded distantly by his many children. His father was Ōkuninushi. A god. The strongest that those who called on the strength of the crocodiles could seek help from, in times of great trouble. 

Mito knows that the kitsune have no contracts. That they are wild. That no one in this lifetime has ever attempted to stake claim on them. She isn't even sure if this is the proper way to go about it, by asking so brazenly. 

"What," the beast rumbles. And Mito must be out of her mind, she  _must_ be, if she hears humor in its voice. "What could you offer me in yourself?"

"I am pregnant," Mito says. She's grateful to have her forehead on the ground; it makes it impossible to see the way her arms shake. The beast isn't trying to hurt her, but it is still massive. Storied. Old.  _Ancient_ in a way that Mito cannot even begin to fathom. Old as the trees that Hashirama can move, old as the deer that the Nara tend. Older still. 

The beast was chakra, entirely. In a way that Mito couldn't even begin to understand. She has sense enough to thank her stars that she isn't even conscious of her own fear. It's just another instinct, something that happens to her. Something she can filter out. 

Gods above and below, her mother was going to be  _livid._ Not to mention Hashirama. 

"My secondborn," Mito continues, "and all of their descendants who you see fit, will keep the oath I intend to make with you here today, Kyuubi-sama." 

A sound like a purr curls through the beast's throat, and Mito is almost sure it's a laugh. She can't hear anything other than that sound as close to it as she is. 

"This sounds awful official," the beast drawls. "We oughta have a contract."

Mito looks up slowly, and she's met with a row of teeth the size of the buildings they've been constructing. They're curled back in what Mito can only imagine is a smile. 

She raises her head higher, lifting herself with her hands still on the soft, charred ground beneath them. The beast's massive red eyes are trained on her, and it has one clawed paw raised above her, the tip of it hovering just barely a breath away from Mito's forehead. 

"A contract," Mito says, her breath falling out of her all at once. 

She had been the one to offer it, but she hadn't even remotely expected that the fox would accept. 

"A contract," the beast confirms. "Between your kin and mine, from your secondborn forward."

Mito nods, her fingers digging into the dirt beneath her. 

"To protect the kitsune," she agrees. 

"Even big bad me?" 

The question floors her. She didn't see that coming. Ōkuninushi spent little, if any time among those who contracted with his children. What did a great spirit like him need protecting from? What did a great spirit like the Kyuubi need her help for? 

"Even you," she says dumbly, her jaw slack. She's abruptly aware that she isn't quite sure of how much she's promising. 

But the fox doesn't call her on it. Instead, his massive claw looms closer, and closer still. 

_"Mito!"_

She throws out a hand to stop him. 

" _Tobirama_ ," she barks back. "Stay back. He isn't going to hurt me." 

The beast laughs again, in a sound like rolling thunder. And Mito finds that the human part of her, the terrified rabbit in her hindbrain that was brought to its knees when the beast first unfurled itself in this world, is totally silent.

Because somehow Mito knows that it's true. The Kyuubi isn't going to hurt her. He doesn't want to. And what's more, he wouldn't. Mito is sure. 

She drops her hand back to her side, and that laugh like a storm blows gently over her face again. It's warm. Mito is reminded that Uzumaki could craft storms with his laughter. 

"No, Uzumaki Mito," the Kyuubi says. "I'm not going to hurt you. I'm not going to hurt you or anyone else. Will you accept this gift?" 

Mito nods slowly, and the Kyuubi's claw descends. 

When it touches her forehead, there is nothing more than a soft heat, like the sun warmed sand in late spring on the beaches. All she sees is light. All she feels is safety. Comfort. The claw rends her skin only the barest bit, in a cut so fine, a claw that large couldn't have possibly formed it. 

On her forehead, beneath the Kyuubi's massive claw, a diamond as red as the Kyuubi's pelt forms.

"This seal and the chakra in it are my contract with you," the Kyuubi says softly. Or at least, as soft as he can. "Those of your blood who give themselves to this cause as you have, will bear it, too." 

That warmth, it suffuses in Mito. It extends itself through her, moving gently through her tenketsu. There's a little burn, because the chakra is foreign, older and stronger and stranger than Mito's will ever be. But it doesn't hurt. It's a stretch, and a soft one at that. 

The Kyuubi's chakra makes a home in the seal on her forehead, one small part of one massive creature. Her blood, his chakra; her promise to him, and his faith in her. 

 _"My name,"_ the Kyuubi says, like the wind through a field of high grass, " _is Kurama, Uzumaki Mito."_

"Kurama."

Mito mouths the name. 

"My great-great-grandchildren will know it," she swears. "Children with only a drop of my blood will know it."

Kurama settles in her mind, curling his nine tails over his paws. And outside of her, Kurama rises and shakes out his heavy pelt, grinning like a cat as he disappears to the wind, to the den where he and the more reclusive of his kind call home, deep in the mountains of Fire Country where the newly born Konohagakure will not disturb them.  

 _"I believe it, Uzumaki Mito,"_  the fox says. _"I believe you."_

* * *

Tsubaki falls out of the sky, and Izuna doesn't hesitate. Practice, a lifetime of practice taught him that much: don't hesitate. Not when lives were on the line.

Tsubaki is a peculiar fiancé, but she's a decent woman. She saved his life, and she had sworn her strength to the Uchiha, to the just born village. To his older brother's dream. Not at all bothered by his preference for men and wholly willing to join in a fool's marriage until the elders died or Nadeshiko produced heirs, whichever came first. 

She was a good person. And what was more, she had saved his life. Instinct alone told Izuna to run for her. Common sense also told him that you didn't let a person you owed a life debt run into a fight they couldn't win without following them for even hope enough of back up. 

Besides, Izuna was Madara's little brother. He wouldn't be alive this long if he didn't believe in throwing yourself headlong into the impossible. In trying, even when you were a fool for doing it. 

So Izuna runs. He leaps, reaches for Tsubaki even as she stares a demon in the face. Even when the demon blinks and she doesn't. He grabs her out of the air and takes them both back down, gently as he can. She looks fine enough when his eyes track her face. But the two prominent black circular seals on her forehead are gone. In their place is a lone, purple diamond. Fantastically small compared to her former markings. 

"Tsubaki-san," Izuna says, gently patting her cheek with his thumb. "Are you with me? Tsubaki-san?"

She smacks her lips, eyes moving behind their closed lids. She lets out a heavy groan, but that sound is better than none. 

"C'mon, Tsubaki-san," he says, trying to encourage her. "We're in the middle of a mild warzone. We oughta get out of here."

She nods blearily, and Izuna keeps his palm on her head to keep her from rattling her brain around in her skull too much.

"Yeah, gotta - ,"

"That's right," Izuna says, encouraging. "Gotta get out of here."

"Help me," she murmurs, head rolling toward him as she reaches out blindly. Izuna grabs her hands as she flails them towards him and holds onto them tightly. 

"I've got you."

"Good," Tsubaki murmurs. "Good." 

She rolls up slowly, then all at once. Izuna holds onto her, tries to lean her against his shoulder so she's upright and not swaying. 

"Let's go," she mumbles. 

And this close, there's absolutely no mistaking it. Izuna watches her open her eyes, and is shocked speechless by a mismatched gaze.

Tsubaki opens her eyes, and Izuna sees red.


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for mako, without whom, this fic never would have happened in the first place.

Sakura wakes up struggling for breath. 

Her head is throbbing and her chakra coils feel loose and confused with the sudden lack of ancient chakra demon buried in the depths of them. She reaches up, rubs her hand across her forehead, and even though she knows she can't actually feel her Byakugō's shape, she knows it's back to its original form. The pale purple diamond under her fingertips sends a rush of nostalgia so raw through her, it almost makes her choke. 

Almost. 

Izuna is in the room with her. As her fiancé, it makes sense that he's the one keeping vigil over her. What Sakura doesn't like about the situation is his posture. 

His back is to her, and is straight as an arrow. He's peering out of the windows into the early dawn light, and doesn't even so much as twitch to turn around and look at her, even though they both know he's aware she's awake. 

"The Uzumaki are safe," he says, instead of acknowledging her return to consciousness. "Fortunately, there were no casualties. You and Mito were the only ones who seemed like they were going to be hurt." 

Sakura levers herself up until she's sitting, and puts her palms in her lap. She stares at them vacantly, surprised at how empty her mind feels without Kurama in it. 

"She's made a contract with a bijū," Izuna muses, laughing under his breath. "Though if anyone could do it, Mito would be the one. She says his name is Kurama, and her descendants are going to protect him. Protect him from what, I couldn't tell you."

He pinches the bridge of his nose and runs the hand over his face. Sakura at least feels good that his humor still seems to be in tact. 

"There was only minor damage to the Uzushio quarter. Nothing that Hashirama couldn't fix," he elaborates. "The entire village is going to be very excited about having a bijū keeping it safe."

He turns around and looks at her then, and it's only at that moment that Sakura realizes that she isn't wearing her eyepatch. 

Izuna is tinged faintly red, and in the early dawn light, Sakura wonders if this is how her life will end. It would have been a decent run. She managed to do everything she had set out to do, and she had found love and her dearest friend along the way. If Izuna would let her shut her eyes before he took her life, that would be a boon. So she could pull up a memory with Obito's Sharingan. One of Sasuke's face, smiling, when she first saw him again. Or one of Mito, fast asleep, still holding Sakura's hand after she wrote a story on the Uzushio princess's palm. 

Izuna was a kind man. He would grant her that little mercy. He smiles at her, and Sakura is sure of it. 

"Don't be so maudlin," he says, his grin light even though his demeanor is heavy. 

They're on the Uchiha compound, in the quarters made for the two of them. Sakura is in their bed, the one they never share because Sakura is in love with Mito, and Izuna is infatuated with Mito's husband. 

"Tsubaki," Izuna says, snapping his fingers to catch her attention. "Relax."

He rises slowly, and crosses their room to sit beside her. 

"I'm the only one that knows."

Sakura presses her lips together and finds it hard to believe. This kind of secret was one that could be easily kept from the future Shodaime. Hell, it was one that Danzou had kept hidden from the Sandaime for decades. But bloodline theft could not be kept from the victimized clan. 

Kakashi had been thoroughly hated by the Uchiha for it, even though Obito's eye was given as a gift. Sakura is well aware that now she is in that very same predicament. 

"Tsubaki," Izuna insists, reaching out one hand to lay gently on top of her balled up fists. "I swear it."

He takes a deep breath and takes his hand back, and presses both of his palms onto his knees. Sakura opens her mouth to speak, but Izuna lifts a hand to stop her. 

"It's probably best if I don't know," he says. And well, that's the truth. Any good shinobi knew the merits of plausible deniability. "And to a certain extent, I don't care. There are no deserters among the Uchiha. There haven't been since the war started. We burn our dead."

Sakura is good enough at her job to be able to read between the lines. 

Izuna didn't know how she got the Sharingan. In his eyes, there was no possible way that she could have gotten it from any Uchiha, living or dead. What's more, medically, it should have been a complete impossibility. If the bloodline theft was out of the realm of possibility to Izuna, so was the idea that someone could remove and then replace their own eye with a Sharingan. 

Impossible, in this time period perhaps. Impossible to anyone other than Sakura. Or rather, than Tsubaki. 

"You don't care?" she asks, because that is the only part of his statement that really makes little sense to her. 

The Uchiha had treated Kakashi terribly for having Obito's Sharingan. He had only learned how to use it through trial and error, and that had been a miserable process. When Hinata found out about Ao's eye during the war, she had demanded her blood rights to it and to his life. It had been one of the few things that had interrupted the alliance during the war. 

Izuna looks up at her, tearing his gaze away from his hands as he does. 

"The elders will kill you if they find out," he says plainly, lowering his voice. "And even though you'd deserve it, Uzushio would still raise banners for you, because you belong to them even if you married into the Uchiha."

That much Sakura could have guessed for herself. The Uchiha ending her life would turn the entire peace treaty and the new village into nothing. It would be difficult to say whether or not the Senju would follow the Uzumaki into war, or if they would back the Uchiha. Uzushio had minor allies in the isles and islets just off the coast of Kiri, but that wouldn't be enough to take on the Uchiha, especially when they were owed Sakura's blood as custom dictated. 

"But when you saved my life, Tsubaki," Izuna continues, "you didn't think about what your elders would do, or what custom dictated."

He looks to the window, where the morning light is spilling gently in. Sakura's eyes follow his, and for a moment, she shuts her eyes and listens to the birds chirping, to the sounds of children in the Uchiha compound playing, laughing together. The sounds of people waking for the morning chores. Dogs barking. And very far away, so far away the noise is so faint she must be imagining it, the Naka River rushing down its path. 

"You did what was right."

Sakura looks at Izuna, at her fiancé. His face is warm as the dawn outside their window. 

"I owe you my life," he says. "I'll keep your secret until I die to repay you that debt."

She opens her mouth, then shuts it again.

"That," Izuna says, "is the right thing to do. And it's the least that I owe you."

Sakura holds her breath, and from the folds of his kimono, he produces an eyepatch. It's different than the plain black ones she had worn before. This one is purple, but not the deep shade of the Nobi. 

No, this one is pale as the Byakugō on her forehead. 

Sakura's fingers are hesitant as she takes it from him, and Izuna watches as she carefully sets it onto her face. She's surprised when she touches the sides of her head. Her hair's gotten longer now. Longer than it's been in months. There's enough to form a scraggly little ponytail at the base of her neck. Barely enough for the fine pair of Nobi tama kanzashi Minako had given to her before she left. 

"You look great," Izuna says, and the smile he wears now is much less strained than the one he wore before. 

Sakura smiles back at him, and wonders if she'd ever wear one in bright Haruno red. If that was something she could allow herself in this new life, even if she couldn't wear her name on her back like she could before. 

"Now please, Tsubaki," Izuna adds, drawing her attention back to him. He's got his hands clasped in front of his face, and he's pulling an awful grimace. "If you have any more secrets,  _please_ , for my heart's sake, keep them to yourself."

The laugh she gives is only matched by the laugh Izuna bellows in return.

* * *

Winter comes, and Sakura has more students than she knows what to do with. 

Building the village managed to get done before the first snows settled in, including the academy and the hospital. Medics and healers from every clan had flocked to the hospital in its earliest days to share knowledge and training. Even civilian healers had shared their expertise when the first medical texts to be placed in Konoha's library were written. 

Teaching medical ninjutsu is a breeze. Running the hospital is somehow easier. Sakura had been born with the patience of a saint, having Sasuke and Naruto for teammates, then Sai after that. Then Kakashi for a teacher. Honestly, she and Yamato had deserved better. 

But the work that she has at the hospital and at the academy is enough to distract her from the worst of her troubles. Her nightmares don't end, nor do Obito's. Some nights she still wakes up shaking, convinced she's on the run. Most nights, she retires to her Uchiha chambers only to use one of Tobirama's Hiraishin to fall asleep in the small quarters she shares with Mito in the Uzushio quarter, and most nights, Mito does the same. Those nights she sleeps easiest, though not always. 

Still, there are comforts. There is Sasuke, who is ever solid, ever comforting at her side. He is the only one who will ever know her as intimately as she can be known, and she is grateful for it. She holds his hand when he shakes from his own nightmares, and they tell each other palm stories like they used to tell Naruto. 

There are Sakura's continued duties with the Handmaidens, which at this point, are less about protecting Mito (though still about protecting Mito) and more about helping Tobirama and Hashirama found the earliest incarnation of ANBU. Sakura had never known in her lifetime that the Black Ops were based on Mito's personal, ancestral guard, but the similarities between Hisame sign language and Konoha's field sign suddenly make an abrupt kind of sense to her when she sits in on those meetings. 

She also becomes painfully aware of the fact that she may have performed the Handmaiden's Fist technique before it was even invented. She only wonders absently if she wasn't called on it so the other girls could further study her behavior, or if Mito had anything to do with that from day one. 

Izuna is a good fool's husband. As good as Sakura could ask for, really. They're quite the power couple, only ever rivaled by Mito and Hashirama. The combined force of Izuna's bubbly personality and Sakura's ferocity makes sure that Sakura gets her way in terms of, well, everything in regards to the hospital and the medic-nin training programs. Besides, it's always funny to give him a high five when they sneak out of their own rooms to flit into the Uzushio quarter and the Senju compound respectively to find their own lovers. 

Sakura counted her lucky stars that she managed to find a husband that also managed to be such a good friend.

The only other couple that's even remotely as worrisome is Nadeshiko and her newlywed husband, Tohru. Her pregnancy is the second after Mito's to be announced, and Sakura doesn't miss the way Sasuke's face flushes with relief when it's declared amongst the Uchiha. It seemed that Uchiha Emi would be born after all, and what a wonderful world the baby girl would be born into. 

And when Sakura isn't busy somehow having a hand in three of the most important clans in the Founder's Era, she's stuck exactly where she wants to be, where she somehow knows she needs to be: teaching. 

It was strange for her at first, discovering something to love other than Mito. Hospital work was rewarding as it had been in her lifetime, and twice as vital in this era. But somehow or another, Sakura hadn't expected herself to enjoy sharing her knowledge as much as she did. From helping write the first formal medical textbooks and encyclopedias, to teaching even civilian children how to splint a finger, it's work that she finds most rewarding. 

She wonders, after all this time, how much Naruto had been able to think ahead when he sent her back. If he had somehow known that Sakura would change all that she did, and this, too. 

Her students are all promising. It had been decided that the first generation born into the village would start with the new academy entrance age. All other young shinobi would be given ranks and hitai-ate befitting their skill. It would cause more frustration and disheartenment than anything, forcing twelve year olds who had killed before to learn how to sharpen kunai and to learn the tenketsu system. 

There are some students though, of that certain awkward age who take well to the new system. Who, despite being thirteen or fourteen or seventeen, seem to adapt well to the new lessons. After all, there is fuinjutsu in this Konoha to learn from seal masters fresh from Uzushio. There is medical ninjutsu to be learned from Sakura. Fire styles from the Uchiha, swordplay from the Shimura. 

Basic first aid is a mandatory requirement, and from those early classes, Sakura is able to assess the students with the best chakra control. She's already got a crop of older shinobi with the kind of chakra control required to be in the specialized healing squads she's designing, with plenty of Uzushio and Uchiha, and more Hyūga than she knows what to do with. But these young ones catch her eye because they are so young, because they're growing up on the precipice of one world and another, and they're  _adapting._

Akimichi Torifu is a sweet boy, and Akimichi Choujinki's youngest son. He wears a cap with ears like a cat's, and blushes whenever Sakura praises him in class. His chakra control is alarmingly precise for someone of his age, and his knowledge of human anatomy and physiology is only what one can expect of an Akimichi. Besides that, his intimate knowledge of herbal medicine could only have risen from his early connections with the Nara and Yamanaka, though it's clear that he paid more attention in those inter-clan lessons than his fellows.

Uchiha Kagami is ditzy for fifteen, but his charm is a front for his grave outlook. He's a child that's seen much war, but not on the battlefield. He was his mother's firstborn, and as such, was there when each of his six younger siblings were born. Kagami was born for midwifery, funnily enough, and his demeanor with the children throughout the village is what makes Sakura pause over him in terms of his ability as a medic. His bedside manner was better than hers was at his age, and his hands are steady the first time she hands him a scalpel. He's the only student to come into the academy knowing how to perform a successful C-section, which is a miracle in and of itself. 

"Helping someone give birth," Sakura had once said to him in passing, "is probably just as difficult as battle medicine."

Shimura Danzou is difficult for Sakura to trust, though the moment she sees him without the scar on his chin is the first moment she realizes that her work in Konohagakure would never really be finished. 

He's a quiet, serious boy, as focused on his work as Kagami, but with half the humor. His chakra coils are stunted by an accident of birth and need more strength training exercises before he'll be a great medic. He's not squeamish around blood, but bad infections make him a little green in the face. Sakura watches him because out of all of them, he's the one she sees most of herself in. Though the Shimura are known for their honor and valor in battle, Danzou's disability makes him have to work twice as hard as his contemporaries just to keep up. 

And that - that's something Sakura can sympathize with. 

When she walks into Tobirama's office with a file on it that says 'D-Rank Medic Team One' on it, and drops it right on his desk with a smile on her face, she can see the headache forming between his eyebrows. 

"You can't graduate students ahead of schedule," he says, even though he's opening the file anyway. 

He's the head of the academy, so he's allowed to do what he wants. And Sakura is Uchiha Izuna's wife, so she's allowed to do what she wants, too. But she won't undermine her own system this early in the game. She's got to respect it, or else the people that come after her won't respect it. 

"I'm not trying to," she replies, propping her hands on her hips. She's in a different haori than the one she wore back on Uzushio, or even in her early days in Fire Country. This one is made for winter, in a dark, burnished red, red as camellias, red as Mito's hair, red as Kurama's eyes, red as blood and clay and daybreak. On one sleeve is the uchiwa of one clan, on the other, the three swirling white flames of another. 

On her back, is Konohagakure's leaf in stark white. 

"I want them for apprentices when they graduate," she says, a grin on her lips. 

Tobirama flips open the folder to avoid looking at her. His eyebrows raise at the names in the dossier, but Sakura doesn't do much other than shrug a shoulder. She looks up at his office, smirking as she does. 

The portraits in the Shodaime's office are the official ones that had been painted that day, many months ago. But the ones in Tobirama's office are copies. Sakura is of the opinion that she looks ridiculous, standing next to Izuna with that dumb little bowl of herbs in her hand. But the artist did a lovely job, and she can't fault him for that. The colors are bright and beautiful, even in the reproductions. 

"That won't be for another four years," Tobirama grouses, "according to your rules."

"Our rules," she corrects. "And I'm aware. By then, they might be ready for me."

Tobirama looks up at her, and Sakura gives him a mean little grin. She had given him private tutoring in basic medical ninjutsu, and while Tobirama had proved himself as a good student when he first came to Uzushio, Sakura was much more like Tsunade as a teacher than Mito was. 

That is, Sakura was  _terrifying._

"I'll pre-process this," Tobirama says, "and when they graduate, they're your problem." 

"Thanks, cousin," she replies. 

And the answering smirk is all that Sakura really needed from him. She hadn't begrudged him not coming after her. If he had sent a search party, her work with destroying Black Zetsu with Sasuke would have been a lot more complicated. 

Mito was still prickly about him, on the fence about his behavior, especially now that she was showing a little more. She was also much less hesitant about throwing her weight around as Hashirama's wife now that her belly was growing round. It was late winter, and spring would be coming again soon. When it came, Mito would shed her winter robes for lighter ones, and the firm shape of her pregnant belly would be impossible to ignore as it had been in these earlier months of autumn. 

The future was promising. With Sakura's young students in the academy, and with her older ones at the hospital. Missives from other fledgling villages would be coming soon, when this new experiment with Konohagakure passed its first year successfully. They would be desperate, all of them for information on the hospital, on how so many people from so many disparate clans and places throughout Fire Country could come together as one, and wear the same insignia. 

Sakura couldn't wait. 

"Before you go," Tobirama says, raising a hand as Sakura turns her back to take her leave. "Yashagorō and his wife have been pestering me about your knowledge of poisons."

Sakura lifts an eyebrow. 

"His wife has a name," she says with a teasing sneer. "Toyotama is the more bothersome one anyway."

Tobirama rolls his eyes and looks over the paperwork on his desk. Sakura often wondered how long it would take before Tobirama passed the mantle of academy head onto someone else. Wartime was over in Fire Country, and wouldn't be starting any time soon if Sakura had anything to say about it. 

"How you get along well with those Grass Country snake-folk is beyond me," he says, "but they do like you, so please talk to them so they stop bothering me."

Sakura tugs her eyelid down and sticks her tongue out at him. 

"They're people, Tobirama, they can't help being strange. Same way you can't help being annoying."

Tobirama bristles at that, his eyes flicking up at her from his paper-grading and lesson planning and resource allocation for the school. 

"Please talk to them, Tsubaki." 

He says it like he's grinding his teeth to dust to ask her, and that much makes Sakura laugh. 

"Alright, I'll talk to them," she says, waving her hand in front of her nose. "I'll get them off your back, promise."

"Good," Tobirama says, readjusting himself in his seat. "They're good people, but they have no sense of propriety."

Sakura lifts an eyebrow. 

"They were poaching in the Yamanaka gardens again, weren't they?"

Tobirama pinches the bridge of his nose. 

"They're going to start a minor clan war if they aren't careful."

"It's funny that you think I can stop it."

"Come off it," Tobirama says, twirling his pen around his knuckles. "When the two of them aren't pestering the Yamanaka, or the Nara, or my brother, or  _me,_ they're in your hospital."

Sakura shrugs. 

"I can't help it that they're at the top of my courses," she says. "Those Grass Country snake-folk were already the best surgeons in the village before they came to me for training."

"Hm," Tobirama says, clearly not paying very much attention. "The way they go on about you, you might be the godmother to their child when they get around to having one."

Sakura stifles a shiver at the thought of having Orochimaru as her godson, but brings her thumbnail up to nibble on. Having Danzou as a student had filled her with dread at one point. But now, he was only a kid. And when he was born, many years from now, Orochimaru would only be a child. 

In this new world, those who had committed wrong in the old one all deserved chances to make right. All of them did. And well, if Sakura couldn't get through to the Snake Sannin, she certainly knew of someone who really could. 

Sasuke would definitely try to fight her on it. And maybe that would be better, if they shared custody. Orochimaru certainly couldn't come out wrong if that happened. 

But in this life, Sakura is sure that Toyotama and Yashagorō weren't going to leave their son an orphan. And maybe that one little change was already all the difference the world to come needed.

"Well," Sakura muses, reminding herself to seek out the Grass Country refugee couple, "that wouldn't be so bad. Only makes the village stronger, doesn't it?"

Tobirama looks up at her, and for a moment, Sakura can almost see him as an old man. Perhaps with hair as long as Hashirama's was now, with a pair of spectacles on his nose. Weathered and tired, but alive. Wise, and kind. Maybe even called 'jiji' by the village brats too young to remember the war Tobirama had grown up in, and had almost died for. 

Old as the Sandaime was before he died. Maybe even older still. 

Sakura smiles. Seeing shinobi live until old age. If that wasn't something she had flown back in time for, then Sakura didn't know what else was. 

"I'll take care of it, cousin."

She gives him a jaunty wink, then takes her leave of him. On her walk home, it snows, ever so gently. 

* * *

"What's your real name?"

Tsubaki blinks like she's been caught stealing.

The sweat on their skin is slowly cooling. Mito is on her back, propped up on several pillows, and Tsubaki has her head on Mito's shoulder, drawing lazy circles all along Mito's swelling stomach. She drags the pads of her fingers up to the purple Byakugō on Mito's throat, down the chakra pathways along her chest. She stops still when Mito asks her question. 

The Uzushio quarter is quiet today. Winter was the realm of the Fubuki and the Hisame, who were generally the tighter lipped of the Uzushio people. It was the Fubuki and the Hisame who kept the worst of the winter storms at bay, who were the best at tanning furs to keep the island shinobi warm. 

An arctic fox pelt lays on top of the pillow underneath Mito's head; a pregnancy gift from Kurama. The pelt was to be worn by the secondborn twin, as a sign of their mother's promise to Kurama before the child could take on the strength of Kurama's chakra when they were older. The rest of the pelts that covered them were either Fubuki or HIsame made. 

"What do you mean?" Tsubaki asks, brows furrowed. 

Mito reaches down and cups Tsubaki's cheek in her hand. Her hair is longer now, just long enough to dust her shoulders. When Minako had seen the length on Tsubaki's wedding day, she had nearly wept as she brought out the hand-me-down pair of wedding tama kanzashi. The ones that Minako had worn when she was married, that Tomoyo had worn, that Aina had worn before them both. Mito had never seen Minako cry until Tsubaki married Izuna with those precious ornaments in her hair. 

Mito rubs her thumb across the high crest of Tsubaki's cheek, gently bumping her eyepatch, and lifts an eyebrow.

"Your real name, Tsubaki," Mito repeats. 

Tsubaki lifts herself up in bed, the pelt around her hips falling as she sits up. 

She had left her apprentices to run the bulk of the hospital's work today. As the personal physician to Uzumaki Mito, Tsubaki had gotten off work to run a check-up on Mito's pregnancy. 

History, perhaps, would remember the two of them as very close friends. That was, if the Senju who wrote the history felt any need to sanitize it. Uzushio on the other hand, would probably tell the truth. 

Hopefully after the Senju elders died off. That would make things much more convenient. 

"How do you know Tsubaki isn't my real name?" 

The corners of Mito's mouth quirk up in a little smile, and she wonders about all the lies Tsubaki has told her. She knows there are many. Secrets kept out of necessity. Ones that she probably cannot bear to say aloud because if she does, she must face the truth of them. 

Mito would never beg those secrets away from her loving-wife. Not in this life, or the next. But her name? Her name was something Mito wanted to know, if only so that she could call her by it when they were alone. 

"That first time when you said it on the beach," Mito explains, "you hesitated. I knew from the beginning."

 Tsubaki shuts her mouth with a click, and Mito laughs when her loving-wife's ears flush red. Even though their second marriage hadn't yet occurred, Mito couldn't help but refer to Tsubaki as such in her mind. Hashirama had already found a loving-husband in Izuna. They only had to wait for the Senju elders to retire or die off, and then they could be public about it. 

The twins tumbling about inside of her, small and fierce and precious, would have two mothers and two fathers. Even the secondborn, the one that Mito would raise for a handful of years before giving over to her mother's tender hands, would know that they were born of Senju, Uzumaki, and Uchiha blood. 

Nobi blood, too, but Mito knew that wasn't the whole truth. 

"Am I that easy to read?" Tsubaki asks. 

Mito leans forward and kisses the tip of Tsubaki's nose, before she plants another one on the Byakugō on her loving-wife's forehead. 

"No," Mito replies, gently pressing their foreheads together, so her red diamond bumps gently against Tsubaki's purple one. "But you were then. You were too in shock to be a good liar."

Tsubaki chuckles at that, and reaches up to grasp Mito's hand. She gives it a light squeeze before gently, she takes the hand off of her cheek. She cradles it in her palms, their foreheads still pressed together. And with the blunt nail of her index finger, Tsubaki writes on Mito's hand. 

_'My name was Haruno Sakura.'_

Mito closes her fist around the name. Spring field. Spring field of cherry blossoms. Tsubaki's hands curve around Mito's fist, her fingers gently rubbing at the curves of Mito's hand, running along the divots between her knuckles. 

"What is it now?" 

Her loving-wife looks up at her, and there's more humor in her eyes now than anything. 

"Nobi Tsubaki? Uchiha Tsubaki?" Mito hedges. 

There's a smile, and then a squeeze of palms around Mito's hand. 

"Maybe, just in private," she says, green eye twinkling, "I could be Uzumaki Sakura."

Mito blinks, and somehow, the memory of Tsubaki's head between her legs only minutes ago makes her flush less red than the idea alone of her family name tacked onto Tsubaki's original one. 

"That is," she continues, "if you don't mind me combing your hair, and watching your back for the rest of my life."

Mito barely lets the smug smile on her loving-wife's face reach her eyes before she's bowling the other woman over, throwing her arms around her throat. 

"Yes," Mito says, taking the proposal for what it is. "Yes, yes, _yes_." 

Sakura laughs under her touch, and Mito laughs with her. And between every kiss Mito places on Sakura's face, on her throat, on her collarbones, her breasts, her arms, and her hands and her thighs and her knees, Mito says, " _Sakura, Sakura, Sakura_ ," like sweet wine, like fresh bread, like a prayer.

Like a promise. 

* * *

In many months, when the season is warm enough and the politics of the young village settle enough to permit it, the two of them will travel to Uzushio in secret. They will stand ankle deep in the pool by the ancient bridge on the Uzumaki clan compound, the one full of the water from that first fateful storm, and Hikaru will hold his mother's hand while she weeps. 

Ryo and Akira will prepare a small meal of noodles and sweets, each man jostling the other to keep themselves from tearing up themselves. Marishi will tuck her head onto her husband's shoulder, and they will both be so proud.

Kurama will watch like a cat who's just finished filling her belly with cream, his tails swishing up a breeze to ruffle their hair and the bells of the tama kanzashi that keep Sakura's updo intact. Sasuke will lean against the fox's side and play the shakuhachi while the priestess affirms their vows. 

Above their heads, the first buds of a cherry blossom tree will bloom. Petals will fall delicately into the water that laps at their legs. And together, when the ocean air and Kurama's breeze catch the heavy branches of the sakura tree, the two will say their vows standing in a whirlpool of cherry blossoms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you all for joining me on the wildest ride. more to come in this 'verse, but it stands complete as far as i'm concerned.


End file.
